Black Students Protest White Teacher’s Hiring : CSUN: A rally is held outside the woman’s classroom. She instructs two Pan-African reading and writing courses.

Black Student Union members at Cal State Northridge have protested the appointment of a white woman to a part-time teaching position in the Pan-African studies department because they say they want an African American to fill the post.

The teacher, Katherine Komis, started work Monday. She teaches two sections in remedial reading and writing in the Pan-African studies department, and one section in the English department.

Equipped with a bullhorn, students led a rally outside Komis’ classroom Wednesday, and on Friday, a few of them met with CSUN President Blenda J. Wilson and Pan-African studies faculty to voice their concerns, said CSUN spokeswoman Carmen Ramos Chandler.

“The students would like to have black mentors in these classes,” said Leslie Small, an African American graduate student and last year’s president of the Black Student Union.

Small said the students were concerned that Komis would be teaching beginning-level students. These students, in particular, need black mentors, he said.

“This is not a race issue,” Small said. “The issue is whether she has the cultural background.”

Small said the students have no quibble with Komis’ qualifications, and added he doesn’t think she should be fired. “She’s just not the person we need in that position,” he said.

Chandler, the campus spokeswoman, said the administration had taken no action regarding Komis as of Saturday. She said she expects further meetings on the issue to take place this week. Officials are not considering removing Komis from her job, she said.

“If they remove her based on race, that’s discrimination, and that’s against the law,” Chandler said.

Chandler added that Komis was teaching white and Latino students, as well as African American students.

Neither Komis--the only white to teach in Pan-African studies in recent memory--nor Wilson, could be reached for comment.

Wilson, who is African American, was unavailable because her father was taken ill last week, Chandler said.

Part-time faculty at CSUN are selected by each department. A faculty committee compiles a list of top candidates, and the department chairman makes a final selection. In Komis’ case, former Pan-African studies Chairman Selase Williams made the appointment earlier this summer. Williams has since departed CSUN for another job and could not be reached for comment.

However, Pan-African studies political science professor James Dennis said the appointment has been questioned by some faculty members, and added that he too found Komis’ hiring “kind of a new experience.”

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Dennis has been with the department since it was created in 1969 in the wake of a rash of student protests. Asked whether he thought Komis should have been hired, he replied that he feels there is a dearth of African American teachers in other CSUN departments. “The burden of a mixing faculty ought to fall on all of the departments that have not mixed faculty before,” he said.

Dennis said the Pan-African studies department did not have enough African American applicants to fill all the open part-time teaching positions this year partly because some instructors were not returning. The Jan. 17 earthquake, which severely damaged campus buildings, has made retaining part-time instructors more difficult, he said.