On Monday, a private labor arbiter ordered The Washington Post to rehire far-left Global Opinions Editor after Attiah said on September 15, 2025, that the newspaper jettisoned her following a series of Bluesky posts excusing and downplaying Charlie Kirk’s assassination from five days earlier.
Despite trashing her bosses, she filed a grievance against The Post for what The New York Times called “a yearlong fight” as Attiah “accused the company of violating its labor agreement and social media policy.” Attiah insisted she was fired for “[s]peaking out against political violence, racial double standards, and America’s apathy toward guns.”
Arbitrator Sarah Miller Espinosa wrote that the “Democracy Die in Darkness” paper “did not have good and sufficient cause to terminate the employment of the Grievant, Karen Attiah” and must “make the Grievant whole, including full backpay and lost benefits.”
“[I]t is undisputed that [Attiah], an 11-year employee of The Post, had never been disciplined prior to the discharge at issue in this matter. Because [she] had not received any progressive discipline, The Post must establish, per the terms of the CBA negotiated by the parties, that [she] engaged in gross misconduct in order for the termination of...employment to be contractually permitted,” she asserted.
As a reminder, here was one of the offending posts, attacking Charlie Kirk with a completely made-up quote insisting he claimed “Black women” lack the “brain processing power” to succeed:
Fired Washington Post columnist @KarenAttiah: "My only direct reference to Kirk was his own words on record."
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) September 15, 2025
Except, what she claims to be a direct quote is not even remotely close to being true. https://t.co/oKgINoAMsG pic.twitter.com/MEAmDkSTfJ
“Part of what keeps America so violent is the insistence that people perform care, empty goodness and absolution for white men who espouse hatred and violence,” she said in another.
She said in one included in the decision that “the rush to coddle violent white men is self-protective – that we know they are not used to feeling vulnerable and mortal — and will react violently out of fear.”
And, in yet another included in the case, Attiah said she was “[r]efusing to tear my clothes and smear ashes on my face in performative mourning for a white man that espoused violence.”
Espinosa filed a convoluted, 39-page decision, even acknowledging these tenets of The Post’s social media policy. Keep in mind that, despite Attiah arguably violating these points, she wasn’t supposed to have been fired without some laborious set of processes with the union (click “expand”):
A Post journalist’s use of social media must not harm the editorial integrity or journalistic reputation of The Post.
(....)
Post journalists should ensure that their activity on social media platforms would not make reasonable people question their editorial independence, nor make reasonable people question The Post’s ability to cover issues fairly.
(....)
Before you publish a post on social media, ask yourself if it compromises our newsroom’s mission to prioritize fact-finding.
(....)
Post journalists should be civil on social media and treat people with respect.
Throw in some laments about Attiah having “been the target of threats” in the past and glowing employee evaluations under previous regimes, the ruling’s statements of facts were stacked heavily against The Post and then-opinion editor Adam O’Neal, including a July 29, 2025 meeting in which O’Neal “told [Attiah] that he had reviewed her body of work and didn’t think it was consistent with his vision for the Section moving forward.”
The ruling laid out in detail the thinking of O’Neal and others once they became aware of Attiah’s posts, but claimed their application of social media guidelines and the ensuing backlash were insufficient grounds for firing
Most comically, Espinosa said claims by O’Neal and his fellow Post executives about Attiah disparaging white men with her posts were “unsupported by” Attiah’s “words, as well as the context” (click “expand”):
A reasonable interpretation of this provision is that posts cannot disparage groups or individuals on the basis of protected characteristics, including race and gender. The Post’s assertion is that the Grievant’s posts disparage White men. That interpretation is unsupported by the actual words, as well as the context, of the Grievant’s posts. The Grievant was referring to a subset of White men, specifically “white men who espouse hatred and violence” and a “white man who espoused violence.” Simply based on the plain language of the text, it is not reasonable to conclude that the Grievant’s posts were referring to or disparaging all White men or disparaging a particular white man on the basis of race or gender. Recognizing an individual’s or individuals’ race or gender does not, in and of itself, constitute misconduct.
The Company’s argument that “Post leadership genuinely interpreted Ms. Attiah’s posts as targeting a group based on their race and gender, given her specific references to White men” is unpersuasive because such an interpretation is unsupported by the actual words of the posts. The Post itself publishes articles and columns specifying the race and gender of individuals.
(....)
The Post’s argument that if “a Post employee posted the same things referring to ‘black women’ instead of ‘white men,’ the policy violation would be indisputable” is likewise unpersuasive. If, in a different set of circumstances involving a Black woman rather than a White man, the Grievant had said “Black women who espouse hatred and violence” and/or “a Black woman who espoused violence,” this alone would not constitute disparagement against a group or individual on the basis of race and gender as the post would be referring to a specific individual or subset of individuals, not disparaging all Black women or a particular Black woman on the basis of race and gender. It is indisputable that race and gender dynamics are often the subject of commentary and reported on in various contexts. Recognizing the race and gender of individuals does not, in and of itself, constitute disparagement on the basis of race or gender.
At the time, we wrote that Attiah took to Substack to whine about her situation, accompanied by what we characterized as “a photo of herself in front of The Post headquarters dressed like the Statue of Liberty with the caption ‘Democracy Dies in Darkness, but some of us will still carry on the light.’”
Since then, Attiah wrapped herself in victimhood status, laid off simply for being a Strong Black Woman™ or something like that. Let this further be a lesson that newsroom guilds and other such unions remain political sewers. Need further proof? Consider what it takes to fire a teacher in New York City.
It must be nice to be able to say incendiary, made-up, stupid things pertaining to your job and not only have your job restored nearly a year later, but receive back pay.
