A former longtime Palos Verdes Peninsula High School baseball coach has reached a tentative settlement in his lawsuit in which he alleged he was denied the post of athletic director because of nepotism and due to his being Japanese-American.
Evan Fujinaga’s Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit alleged discrimination, failure to prevent discrimination and a violation of the state constitution by the Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District. On Monday, his attorney filed court papers with Judge Lia Martin notifying her of a “conditional” settlement in the case with the expectation a request for dismissal will be filed by Sept. 30. No terms were divulged and it was unclear whether the settlement is subject to final approval by the Board of Education.
In their previous court papers, PVPUSD attorneys denied Fujinaga’s allegations and cited multiple defenses, including immunity.
Fujinaga, now 49, served as the Palos Verdes Peninsula High baseball coach for more than a decade and built a strong program. According to the suit, more than 40% of the program’s graduates played college baseball, over 15% played professionally and about 4% were Major League Baseball players.
During Fujinaga’s tenure, the high school baseball team compiled a record of 242-113. Fujinaga also served as the district’s athletics director for four years and he later had the same job with the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District and the Redondo Beach Unified School District.
While still working with the PVPUSD, Fujinaga was diagnosed with anxiety, which he disclosed to the administration and which prompted him to take a medical leave of absence, the suit filed Dec. 12 stated.
In June 2024, the PVPUSD posted vacancies for the positions of head baseball coach and athletics director at the high school and he applied for the latter position on the recommendation of the school principal, who told him he would not be hired for the baseball coach job despite having the experience for the job, the suit stated.
But although Fujinaga believed he was the most qualified candidate for the athletics director job, the position was instead given to someone who had never worked in such a role before and was married to the school’s assistant principal, the suit stated.
Fujinaga believes nepotism as well as racial discrimination and his anxiety disability all played roles in his being denied the athletics director position at the high school, according to the suit, which further stated that Fujinaga suffered lost earnings and emotional distress as a result of being passed over for the job.