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An arbitrator has ordered The Washington Post to reinstate a black opinion writer fired over social media posts about violent white men following last year's killing of Charlie Kirk.
The ruling Thursday said the newspaper did not have sufficient cause to terminate Karen Attiah, who at the time was the last Black full-time member of the Post's opinion desk. The arbitrator, Sarah Miller Espinosa, also ordered the Post to award Attiah full back pay and lost benefits.
Kirk, who rose from a teenage conservative campus activist to become a top podcaster and ally of President Donald Trump, was shot and killed Sept. 10 during a public appearance at Utah Valley University. He was 31.
Kirk launched Turning Point USA in 2012 and made provocative statements about race, gender and politics. He was critical of the Black Lives Matter movement on college campuses and called George Floyd, the black man whose 2020 murder at the hands of Minneapolis police sparked protests, a "scumbag."
After Kirk's killing, Attiah, the founding global opinion editor for the Post and the newspaper's only Black female opinion writer, made several posts to her Bluesky account.
One post read: "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 was emailed a termination letter on Sept. 11, accusing her of "gross misconduct."