Washington Post ordered to rehire Ghanaian-American columnist
A private arbitrator has ordered The Washington Post to reinstate Ghanaian-American columnist Karen Attiah, who was dismissed by the newspaper over social media posts she made following the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk according to the New York Times report on August 24, 2026.
According to the report, the arbitrator also ordered the newspaper to compensate Attiah with back pay, ruling that The Washington Post did not have sufficient grounds to terminate her and had violated its labor agreement.
In a written decision, arbitrator Sarah Miller Espinosa said the newspaper “did not have good and sufficient cause” to dismiss Attiah and failed to establish that she had engaged in gross misconduct.
Attiah, a longtime contributor to The Washington Post, welcomed the decision, saying she hoped it would send a strong message to journalists and media organisations about the importance of freedom of expression.
She said she was willing to return to the newspaper, describing it as “one of the world’s most storied newspapers.”
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“This decision confirms what we’ve said from the start: I was doing my job as an opinion writer, and this was wrongful termination,” Attiah said.
A spokesperson for The Washington Post said the newspaper respected the arbitration process but declined to comment further.
Attiah, who previously served as the founding editor of the newspaper’s Global Opinions section, said her dismissal stemmed from her social media commentary on political violence, racial double standards and America’s attitude towards guns.
Her dismissal followed posts she made on Bluesky after Kirk was fatally shot on September 10, 2025, during an event at Utah Valley University in Utah.
In the posts, Attiah criticised what she described as America’s expectation that people show “care, empty goodness and absolution” towards white men who promote hatred and violence, although she did not directly name Kirk.
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She also referred to a 2023 comment by Kirk concerning affirmative action, in which he questioned the “brain processing power” of prominent Black women, including former MSNBC host Joy Reid and former First Lady Michelle Obama.
Attiah defended her posts, saying they received thoughtful engagement and support with little public backlash.
However, The Washington Post reportedly took issue with her assertion that Kirk had “espoused violence” and with her decision to quote his previous remarks.
Attiah rejected allegations of unacceptable conduct, gross misconduct and endangering the safety of her colleagues, arguing that the accusations were unsupported by evidence.
The Washington Post Guild also criticised the newspaper’s decision at the time, arguing that Attiah had been wrongly dismissed over her social media posts and that the disciplinary process had not been properly followed.
Attiah was born to Ghanaian parents and raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She rose to prominence at The Washington Post following the 2018 murder of Saudi journalist and Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.
Her father is a Ghanaian pulmonologist, while her mother is also of Ghanaian heritage and was partly raised in Nigeria after fleeing civil conflict at the age of 14.
Attiah spent summers in Ghana visiting relatives and later received a Fulbright Scholarship in 2008 to study at the University of Ghana in Accra.
After graduate school, she worked as a media consultant for the World Bank’s Africa programme and as a freelance reporter for the Associated Press while based in Curaçao.
She joined The Washington Post in 2014 and became the founding editor of its Global Opinions section in 2016. She was later promoted to an Opinions columnist in 2021.
At the time of her dismissal, Attiah was reportedly the newspaper’s last remaining full-time Black opinion columnist.
Her termination also came amid significant changes within The Washington Post’s Opinions department, following owner Jeff Bezos’ push to refocus the section around what he described as “personal liberties and free markets.”
The newspaper subsequently hired a new Opinions editor, Adam O’Neal, while several columnists departed.
The arbitration ruling now requires The Washington Post to reinstate Attiah and provide her with back pay, marking a significant development in the dispute over her dismissal and the boundaries of expression for journalists on social media.
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