An impartial arbitrator has dominated that The Washington Submit should reinstate columnist Karen Attiah with again pay and advantages, discovering that her firing violated a collective bargaining settlement, the union and the authorized group representing her stated Monday.
In September, Attiah stated she was fired for social media posts following the Charlie Kirk killing.
“This resolution confirms what now we have been saying all alongside: I used to be doing my job as an opinion journalist, and doing that job doesn’t represent misconduct,” Attiah stated in an announcement.
A Washington Submit spokesperson stated it respects the arbitration course of however declined to remark additional.
Attiah was a member of the Submit Guild and coated by its collective settlement. In keeping with the guild, she may solely be fired following “progressive self-discipline” or if she reached the extent of “severe misconduct.”
Hours after Kirk’s capturing, Attiah posted on social media: “I want I had hope for gun management and will imagine that ‘political violence has no place on this nation.’ However we stay in a rustic that accepts white youngsters being massacred by gun violence. Not solely does he settle for, however he worships violence.
“A part of what retains America so violent is the insistence that individuals present compassion, empty kindness, and absolution for white males who espouse hatred and violence…Once more. I do not like empty rhetoric.”
She additionally posted one among Kirk’s quotes, which stated, “Black girls haven’t got the mind processing energy to be taken significantly. It’s a must to go steal a white particular person’s spot.” Social media is filled with claims about what Kirk has stated up to now, however Snopes has referred to as the black girls’s quote, taken from a 2023 podcast, true.
Attiah continued to submit within the days following the assassination, defending what she had written.
On the time of his firing, the Submit declined to touch upon personnel issues. The Postal Service outlined its insurance policies and requirements, together with its social media coverage.
The guild argued that Attiah’s firing was pretextual and that she was being penalized for feedback that match her job description. Attiah was the final full-time black opinion columnist on the publication.
Submit Guild President Natalie Vineberg stated in an announcement: “Journalists can not work in a corporation the place they have to stay in worry of being arbitrarily fired for doing their job – which, in Karen’s case, was writing her opinion piece. » The New York Occasions was first to report on Attiah’s reinstatement. The guild defended Attiah in arbitration, with assist from the Democracy Defenders Fund.
Attiah joined the Submit in 2014 and served for a time as international opinion editor. She spoke out considerably on the assassination of columnist Jamal Khashoggi by brokers of the Saudi regime.