Ruth Shalit Barrett (; born 1971) is an American freelance writer and journalist whose work has appeared in The New Republic, The Wall Street Journal, ELLE, New York Magazine and The Atlantic.

In 1999 she resigned from The New Republic following claims of plagiarism and inaccuracy. In 2020, The Atlantic retracted an article she wrote for them after it emerged that she had lied to the magazine's fact-checking department.

Shalit Barrett graduated from Princeton University in 1992 and had her journalistic debut with Reason that same year. Soon after, she was offered an internship at The New Republic. Shalit was considered to be an up-and-coming young journalist throughout the 1990s after she was promoted to an associate editor position at The New Republic, writing cover stories for the political weekly. She also wrote for the New York Times Magazine and had a $45,000-a-year contract to do pieces for GQ.

She is the sister of conservative writer and author Wendy Shalit. She married Henry Robertson Barrett IV in 2004, becoming the stepdaughter-in-law of Edward Klein. Robertson Barrett was the Vice President of Media Strategy and Operations at Yahoo! before becoming the president of Hearst's digital division in 2016.

As of 2020, Shalit lives in Westport, Connecticut, with her husband and two children.