The Washington Post has been ordered to reinstate opinion columnist Karen Attiah, almost a year after she was fired over social media posts made in the days after the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
The Post said her comments breached its social media policy and hurt the masthead’s integrity.
Attiah and her union always maintained she was doing her job as an opinion writer, not breaking any rules.
Now an independent arbitrator has agreed.
Here’s how we got here.
Background
The Washington Post is a major American newspaper published in Washington D.C.
It is currently owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
Attiah spent 11 years at the publication, including a stint as its first Global Opinions editor.
In September 2025, conservative activist Charlie Kirk was shot and killed at a Utah university event.
Attiah posted commentary on the social media platform Bluesky about the public mourning for Kirk, who was known for controversial rhetoric on race, gender, and gun violence.
Firing
The Post fired Attiah shortly afterwards.
In her termination letter, the paper said her posts harmed “the integrity” of the organisation and broke its standards requiring civility on social media.
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Attiah and her union rejected the claim, arguing the posts were commentary, well within her role as a columnist.
Ruling
Attiah is a member of her union, the Washington-Baltimore News Guild’s branch at the Post.
The union’s contract with the Post says the paper can only fire a member without disciplining them first if they’ve engaged in “gross misconduct or wilful neglect of duty”.
Attiah and the union didn’t believe her firing met those conditions.
Meetings between Attiah, the union, and the Post didn’t resolve the dispute, so it escalated to arbitration.
Arbitration is a private, binding process where a neutral third party (not a judge) hears both sides of a dispute and issues a decision that the parties are required to follow.
An arbitration hearing was held in June 2026, with testimony from Attiah, then-opinion editor Adam O’Neal, and the Post’s chief human resources officer.
Arbitrator Sarah Miller Espinosa found the Post “did not have good and sufficient cause” to fire Attiah and had violated its agreement with the union.
She found the Post “failed to establish the grievant engaged in gross misconduct,” and ordered it to reinstate Attiah with full back pay and benefits.
Response
Attiah welcomed the decision, saying she hopes it “sends a message to journalists and media institutions everywhere that freedom of expression is always worth fighting for.”
A Washington Post spokesperson told The New York Times the company respects the arbitration process, but declined to comment.
A spokesman for Turning Point USA, the organisation Kirk founded, told Fox News companies should be able to fire people who “reveal themselves to be a ghoul.”
