Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah was reportedly fired over her social media comments in the aftermath of the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
Attiah, a prominent voice on race, gender, and global affairs, announced her termination via a Substack post.
Karen Attiah claims she was fired “without evidence” of charges
Attiah posted a Substack column on Monday. She wrote that Post bosses “accused my measured Bluesky posts of being ‘unacceptable,’ ‘gross misconduct’ and of endangering the physical safety of colleagues — charges without evidence, which I reject completely as false.”
“They rushed to fire me without even a conversation. This was not only a hasty overreach, but a violation of the very standards of journalistic fairness and rigor the Post claims to uphold.”
In her own words, she was expressing “sadness and fear for America” and condemning the country’s “acceptance of political violence.”
She highlighted a “familiar pattern” of shrugging off gun deaths, particularly when the violence is carried out by white men. This commentary was proven right after the suspect in Kirk’s killing was identified as a young white man.
Attiah pointed out “the familiar pattern of America shrugging off gun deaths”
“My most widely shared thread was not even about activist Charlie Kirk, who was horribly murdered, but about the political assassinations of Minnesota lawmaker Melissa Hortman, her husband and her dog,” she stated.
“This cycle has been documented for years. Nothing I said was new or false or disparaging— it is descriptive, and supported by data,” said Attiah.
For her part, Attiah believes her firing is part of a larger trend. As she stated in her Substack, she was the last remaining full-time Black opinion writer on staff at the Post.
She frames her termination as a “purge of Black voices” from media, academia, and government. It’s a historical pattern that she finds both “dangerous” and “shameful.”
Washington Post firing reflects deeper shift
The Washington Post’s public-facing social media policy for its journalists is comprehensive. It advises them to “avoid active involvement in any partisan causes” and to refrain from “writing, tweeting or posting anything…that could be perceived as reflecting political, racial, sexist, religious or other bias or favoritism.”
However, the policy explicitly states it “does not apply to columnists, critics and other practitioners of opinion journalism posting as part of their work.”
The Washington Post declined to comment on personnel matters. The paper does have a public-facing “Policies and Standards” that details the Post’s position on social media use by employees.
Attiah’s termination from the Post comes days after MSNBC fired political analyst Matthew Dowd. He described Kirk as a “divisive” figure who pushed “hate speech”, shortly after he was shot.
“As a columnist, I used my voice to defend freedom and democracy, challenge power and reflect on culture and politics with honesty and conviction,” Attiah wrote on Substack. “Now, I am the one being silenced – for doing my job.”
During her time at the Washington Post, which began in 2014, Attiah won the 2019 George Polk Award. She was also the 2019 Journalist of the Year from the National Association of Black Journalists.
She is encouraging those who would like to support her to register for Fall, Race, Media and International Affairs 101 & 102 in her Resistance Studies Series.
Attiah’s record on race and history
Attiah’s dismissal also raises questions given her long record of writing extensively about racial injustice and historical memory. She has repeatedly drawn national attention to the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre and its lasting impact.
In 2021, during the centennial, she authored a column reflecting on Tulsa as a city caught between “light and darkness,” urging the country to confront the violence that destroyed Greenwood. She also pressed for concrete justice for survivors and descendants, noting the government’s historical failure to deliver reparations. More recently, she criticized official apologies and reports that, in her words, fell short of real accountability, and she urged the Biden administration to follow through on promised support for massacre survivors.
Attiah revisited Tulsa in multiple essays over the years, treating the massacre as more than just a tragic past event. She framed it as part of an ongoing national struggle over race, power, and reparative justice. Her consistent focus underscored her reputation as a columnist willing to confront the country’s most painful truths.