Karen Attiah, a former Washington Post opinion writer and the newspaper's founding global opinions editor, was fired on September 11, 2025, one day after conservative activist Charlie Kirk was shot and killed during a public appearance at Utah Valley University. The Post's termination letter accused Attiah of gross misconduct, saying her social-media comments about Kirk's death violated the newspaper's social-media policies, harmed the organisation's integrity and potentially endangered staff. Nearly a year later, independent arbitrator Sarah Miller Espinosa ruled that the Post did not have “good and sufficient cause” to terminate Attiah and had violated its collective bargaining agreement with the Washington-Baltimore News Guild. Espinosa ordered the newspaper to reinstate Attiah immediately, with full back pay and lost benefits. The decision is dated August 20, 2026, but was made public four days later, on August 24. The ruling brought a year-long dispute over newsroom discipline and expression to a close.
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