Editor’s note: This article includes references to language and events that could be disturbing to readers.

Dive Brief:

• Construction giant Whiting-Turner has agreed to pay $1.2 million to settle a racial harassment and retaliation suit for incidents that allegedly occurred at a $600 million Google data center project in Clarksville, Tennessee, according to a release from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
• The EEOC sued Baltimore-based Whiting-Turner, the sixth largest contractor in the country, for subjecting Black employees to a racially hostile work environment where it segregated employees into all-Black work crews headed by White supervisors and retaliated against two workers after they complained.
• A White supervisor allegedly referred to Black employees as “boy” “m----f-----” and “you,” and routinely told them to “get ya Black asses back to work,” according to the lawsuit. Multiple portable bathrooms and buildings on the jobsite were defaced with racially offensive graffiti, the suit said, while a noose was displayed in the workplace on Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday. When two Black employees complained publicly during a team meeting about how Black workers were treated at the site, they were fired the same day, the suit alleged.

Dive Insight:

In a statement to Construction Dive, Tim Regan, president and CEO of Whiting-Turner said the firm was pleased to resolve the suit but made a point to say the settlement didn’t indicate an admission of guilt on...

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