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EEOC sues construction firm over allegedly hostile work environment

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EEOC

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said Friday it has filed suit against a national construction company for allegedly subjecting black laborers at a Tennessee project to a racially hostile work environment and then firing some of them when they complained.

The agency said that Baltimore-based Whiting-Turner Contracting Co., while it was a general contractor on the Google LLC data center in Clarksville, Tennessee, subjected black laborers from at least May 2018 through the fall of 2019 to racial epithets and other disparaging language. Also, numerous port-a-potties at the site were covered in racially offensive graffiti, the EEOC said in its statement.

The EEOC said that although black employees reported these issues to Whiting-Turner on several occasions, the company did not investigate the complaints, then terminated two employees after they complained of the discrimination.

The company is charged with violating Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Nashville.

Whiting-Turner did not respond to a request for comment.