Columnist Karen Attiah Declines Return to The Washington Post Despite Arbitration Win
Columnist Karen Attiah has announced she will not return to The Washington Post, despite an arbitrator ordering the newspaper to rehire her with back pay. Attiah, who was fired in September 2025 following the assassination of Charlie Kirk, stated in a Substack post that her decision stems from a realization that returning would mean working without "guaranteed freedom and institutional support." The arbitrator, Sarah Miller Espinosa, ruled in August that The Post lacked "good and sufficient cause" to terminate Attiah and violated its labor agreement, concluding that the newspaper failed to prove "gross misconduct." The Post had accused Attiah of violating social media policies and harming the outlet's integrity through her Bluesky posts reacting to Kirk's assassination. These posts included statements such as, "Refusing to tear my clothes and smear ashes on my face in performative mourning for a white man that espoused violence is not the same as violence." Attiah also misattributed a quote to Kirk in one ...
