Eight months after her firing by the Washington Post for what they considered “gross misconduct” related to her social media posts regarding the death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, former Washgington Post columnist Karen Attiah is now set to go to arbitration against the Post over her dismissal.
“While newsroom diversity is absolutely critical, it is not the only principle at stake. I am fighting for journalists’ rights to do their jobs, to comment on matters of public concern without fear of censorship, retaliation, or political pressure,” Attiah wrote on her Substack on Monday. “And this is a battle well worth having.”
She added, “I am thankful for the support of the Washington Post Guild, my lawyers at the Washington Baltimore News Guild, as well as Norman Eisen and the legal support from the Democracy Defenders Fund.
And of course, I am deeply grateful to my readers, followers, friends, mentors, and the industry peers who have supported me throughout my career and through what has been one of the most personally and professionally challenging periods of my life.”
In the wake of Kirk’s killing last September, several figures, regardless of social status, found their social media posts used as a means to get doxxed, jailed or even sued. Attiah, a longtime columnist at the Post who won several awards during her 11-year tenure, saw her career at the fabled paper end after she wrote about political violence in the country, even though she did not mention Kirk by name.
“For everyone saying political violence has no place in this country… Remember two Democratic legislators were shot in Minnesota just this year,” Attiah wrote on BlueSky last year. “And America shrugged and moved on.”
She continued, “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. Again, I don’t care for empty rhetoric.”
The posts were among the three Attiah shared on September 10, the same day Kirk was killed. The fourth involved her stating that refusing to mourn someone who espoused violence doesn’t mean the same thing as violence. In reality, the only time Attiah even mentioned Kirk was when she paraphrased Kirk’s thoughts on four Black women: Joy Reid, Michelle Obama, Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, and late Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee.
“Black women do not have the brain processing power to be taken seriously. You have to go steal a white person’s slot,” Attiah posted with Kirk’s proper attribution.
Attiah’s arbitration hearing is set for Thursday.
Recent legal wins
In recent months, men and women who were criminalized or lost their jobs over their own comments regarding Kirk’s death have scored legal wins. In May, 61-year-old Larry Bushart, a retired police officer, was awarded $835,000 by the state of Tennessee after his Facebook posts were tied to the Kirk killing by citing Donald Trump saying “get over it” regarding a school shooting in Iowa.
“I am pleased my First Amendment rights have been vindicated,” Bushart said in a statement at the time. “The people’s freedom to participate in civil discourse is crucial to a healthy democracy. I am looking forward to moving on and spending time with my family.”
Last week, a former Ball State University employee was awarded $235,000 in a settlement against the University after she was terminated for her social media posts regarding Kirk’s death. Suzanne Swierc sued Ball State University President Geoffrey Mearns over violation of her First Amendment rights, citing that she was “speaking as a private citizen on a matter of public concern.”
Other settlements included the state of Florida paying out $485,000 to a former state biologist who was fired for reposting a meme about Kirk not caring about students dying in a school shooting and a Tennessee university professor being awarded $500,000 and being reinstated by his employer after he was fired for sharing a 2023 news story with the headline “Charlie Kirk Says Gun Deaths ‘Unfortunately’ Worth it to Keep 2nd Amendment.”
