VAN NUYS : Ex-Headmaster Sues School, Charges Racism

An exclusive Van Nuys preparatory school being sued for racial discrimination was sued again Monday, this time by a former headmaster who is white but says he was fired because the school’s owner thought he was black.

Dale Goodman, in a lawsuit filed in Superior Court in Van Nuys, is seeking more than $10 million in damages from the Fukushima High School of Japan and its American subsidiary, the Stratford Preparatory School on Sepulveda Boulevard.

Goodman said the school’s Japanese owner, Motoaki Yamamori, had him fired in September, 1989, after Yamamori visited his home during a trip to the United States, met Goodman’s adoptive father and wife--both of whom are black--and assumed that he too was black. As a result, he alleges, he has since suffered “damage to his reputation and earning capacity, humiliation, emotional distress and mental anguish.” School officials had no comment.