YES! An arbitrator orders The Washington Post to rehire the opinion writer that they fired last year for making a post about Charlie Kirk that pissed off MAGA supporters.
The First Amendment is alive and well...
"The Washington Post fired me last year for speaking the truth after Charlie Kirk's killing. I fought back. I'm happy to announce: I won my case against the Washington Post," Karen Attiah wrote on X. "They have been ordered to reinstate me immediately."
Attiah will also be compensated with backpay from the Post. She was fired as an opinion columnist over social media posts she made after racist demagogue Charlie Kirk was assassinated.
Sarah Miller Espinosa, the private arbitrator in the case, wrote that The Post “did not have good and sufficient cause” to justify the firing and stated that they "violated" their labor agreement with Attiah.
Attiah was graceful in victory and said that she is "willing to go back" to work at The Post, adding that the publication is "one of the world’s most storied newspapers.” At the same time, she said that she hopes this outcome “sends a message to journalists and media institutions everywhere that freedom of expression is always worth fighting for.”
Attiah was originally fired for allegedly damaging the "integrity" of the Post and violating their social media standards. In reality, her posts were perfectly reasonable.
“Refusing to tear my clothes and smear ashes on my face in performative mourning for a white man that espoused violence is … not the same as violence,” Attiah wrote in one.
It cannot be stressed enough what a huge win this is not only for free speech, but for liberals in our nation's never-ending culture war. Conservatives went on a mad spree after Kirk's death, working to get innocent people fired for offering up even the tamest criticisms of Kirk's odious legacy. Just because he was killed — a tragedy that every moral person should condemn wholeheartedly — they thought that they could bully us into canonizing him as a saint. This was a man who made millions of dollars spreading racist lies while doing the bidding of oligarchs and corporations. He certainly didn't deserve what happened to him, but he was the furthest thing from a good man.
