Washington Post Ordered to Reinstate Fired Columnist
The Washington Post has been directed to bring back an opinion columnist who was dismissed over allegedly falsified online posts concerning Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, following his assassination.
A private arbitrator ruled in favor of Karen Attiah, as reported by Reuters on Monday.
According to the report:
Arbitrator Sarah Miller Espinosa determined that the newspaper “did not have good and sufficient cause” for Attiah’s termination and had “violated” its labor agreement. “The Washington Post failed to establish that the grievant engaged in gross misconduct,” she noted.
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The disagreement began after Attiah made posts on the social media platform Bluesky, after Kirk’s assassination in September 2025, including comments regarding Kirk’s previous statements on Black women.
The Post claimed in its termination letter that Attiah’s posts breached its social media policy, which demands that employees maintain respectful online behavior and not compromise the newspaper’s journalistic integrity.
Attiah shared her victory on social media, stating she was fired for expressing the “truth” after Kirk’s death.
Following Kirk’s assassination during a speaking event at Utah Valley University on September 10, Breitbart News columnist John Nolte suggested Attiah was let go due to multiple posts, including one that contained a “fake quote.”
Attiah attributed the phrase “Black women do not have the brain processing power to be taken seriously. You have to go steal a white person’s slot” to Kirk, according to screenshots in Nolte’s article.
On September 16, Lead Stories fact-checked this quote:
Did Charlie Kirk actually say that “Black women do not have the brain processing power to be taken seriously”? That’s not an accurate quote. Actually, Kirk criticized four prominent liberal Black women by name, specifically calling out Rep. Shirley Jackson Lee, D-Texas, TV host Joy Reid, Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, and attorney Michelle Obama.
This misquote gained traction on social media, including a post by the karenattiah account on September 10, 2025, which shared the line without context.
The article elaborated on Kirk’s complete statement, which he made shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision regarding affirmative action in college admissions:
If we’d suggested three weeks ago that Joy Reid and Michelle Obama and others were chosen for their roles because of affirmative action, we’d have faced accusations of racism. But now they’re coming forward and admitting it! They’re saying, “I’m only here because of affirmative action.”
Yes, it’s true. You don’t possess the brain processing ability to be taken as serious otherwise. You had to take a spot from a White person to be considered somewhat credible.
Several commentators from the Black community defended Kirk’s statements:
The Post was mandated to reinstate Attiah with back pay, as indicated in the Reuters report.
