A private arbitrator has ordered The Washington Post to rehire award-winning opinion columnist Karen Attiah with back pay. Attiah was fired last fall over comments she made following the fatal shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Shortly after Kirk was killed last September, Attiah wrote online, “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.”
“The Washington Post argued that my posts disparaged white men and were in violation of their social media policy,” says Attiah, who attributes her ability to challenge her firing to her union, the Washington Post Guild. “I am very much ready and willing to go back to writing,” she says. “My beat was writing about race, gender, human rights and global issues. So, I fully expect — and, frankly, demand — that I be able to publish freely, that I be able to write freely. So that is what is on the table.”
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.