Karen Attiah, a longtime opinion columnist for The Washington Post, said she was dismissed last week following social media posts she made in the aftermath of right-wing commentator Charlie Kirk’s assassination.
In a Substack post announcing her termination, Attiah said the posts expressed opposition to political violence and frustration over America’s failure to address gun violence. One message criticized “white America” for not doing enough to reduce firearms, while others drew attention to what she described as “racial double standards” in the response to Kirk’s death.
According to Attiah, The Post told her that the posts constituted “gross misconduct,” endangered “the physical safety of colleagues,” and violated newsroom standards—characterizations she disputed. “I exercised restraint even as I condemned hatred and violence,” she wrote.
A spokesperson for The Post declined to comment, citing company policy, which requires employees to use social media responsibly, civilly, and with respect for others.
The dismissal comes amid broader upheaval inside the paper’s opinion section. Last year, Post owner Jeff Bezos directed the section to reflect a greater emphasis on “personal liberties and free markets,” prompting the departure of editorial page editor David Shipley and several colleagues. Shipley was replaced by Adam O’Neal, formerly of The Economist and The Wall Street Journal.
Attiah’s firing mirrors a wave of disciplinary actions across media outlets following Kirk’s killing. MSNBC recently terminated political analyst Matthew Dowd, who said Kirk “pushed” hate speech during a live broadcast. Meanwhile, conservative activists have urged supporters to scour the internet for comments about the assassination and pressure employers to act.
Attiah stressed that she never celebrated Kirk’s death, noting that her only direct reference to him cited past comments he made disparaging Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson and former Texas congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee.
She closed her Substack post by encouraging readers to join an online course she leads on race and media. “My only direct reference to Kirk was one post — his own words on record,” she wrote.
