"In August 2002, Fluor Enterprises hired Terry White, who is part Cherokee, as an ironworker for a construction project at Duke Energy's Belews Creek power plant in Stokes County. White was working as a fitter when he and a handful of other workers - all of them American Indian - noticed that the foremen seemed to exclude them from daily meetings.

"We'd stand there," he said. "But we were always pushed to the back."

Before long White and his coworkers detected more overt racism in the workplace beyond their exclusion from regular meetings. He said bathroom stalls were scrawled with racial epithets and he heard his boss mutter comments about black and American Indian employees. His foreman once made a crack to White about being interbred, he said. All of those things, White said, contributed to an uncomfortable work environment, especially for the American Indians on the jobsite.

Still, he kept working. He did so well getting his crew to complete punch lists, usually a list of construction goals for the day, that his boss promised him a shot at general foreman.

"They never gave me the chance to take the test," White said."

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Amy Kingsley: Contractor for Duke Energy sued for discrimination (The Greensboro Yes Weekly 8/2)