After Kirk was shot and killed on 10 September 2025, Attiah took to social media and wrote: “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.” She also posted: “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.”

“This decision confirms what we’ve said from the start: I was doing my job as an opinion journalist, and doing that job is not misconduct,”