A former Cal Poly Pomona police chief is suing the school and the Cal State University system, claiming he was fired because he refused to hire an unqualified black woman to be his second in command.

Randal Quan alleges that university officials pressured him to hire the woman as his lieutenant in the name of diversity, despite his protests that doing so would jeopardize campus safety.

Quan was abruptly fired April 8, about six months after starting the $107,000 per year job, sparking protests at the campus.

The Walnut man did not return a telephone call left at his home Monday seeking comment.

His attorney, Steven Serratore, declined to comment on the lawsuit, as did a Cal Poly spokesman.

Quan was hired at Cal Poly with much fanfare in May 2002 after 26 years in law enforcement.

He gained much of his experience with the Los Angeles Police Department, where he became the first Chinese-American captain in the history of that department and served as commanding officer of 335 sworn and civilian employees of the jail division.

He replaced Kim Plater at Cal Poly, where he supervised 16 sworn peace officers and an administrative staff during his short stay.

In his lawsuit, filed Jan. 15 in Los Angeles Superior Court, Quan claims Cal Poly Provost Tomas Morales began pressuring him to hire a black woman for the lieutenant job soon after hiring him. He claims Morales was eager to hire a high-ranking female officer to compensate for losing Plater and to gain political favor from some campus groups.

The lieutenant holds the second highest ranking job in the department and assumes command of the police force in the chief's absence.

Quan claims in his lawsuit that Morales and other university officials manipulated a search process so Shirley Smith, a black woman who heads the private security force at Cypress College, was named a finalist.

Quan claims he interviewed Smith and determined she lacked the qualifications for the lieutenant job. Specifically, she lacked police patrol, supervision, and investigative experience, and had never filed cases with a district attorney's office.

She also held an expired training certification, he claims.

Quan alleges that despite this, top administrators pressured him to hire Smith, even though other finalists included two sergeants from the Cal Poly police force and another from Cal State Fullerton, all of whom possessed the training Smith lacked.

He claims he rebuffed the overtures until he was called to Morales' office and abruptly fired. He claims Morales refused to tell him why.

Quan is suing for wrongful termination, violation of the California Fair Employment and Housing Act and infliction of emotional distress.

Smith on Monday distanced herself from the disagreement, saying she didn't want to take sides.

She said she does, however, resent that Quan openly called her qualifications into question.

"It's completely unfair to a person who is innocent and didn't have anything to do with the choice or situation," she said. "You choose a person or you don't. I accept that for what it's worth. But the issue is not me. It's an issue that exists between the people who work there and the people who run the place."

University spokesman Ron Fremont said the lieutenant job has remained vacant while the university searched for a new chief.

That search recently ended when the school hired Michael Guerin, who previously worked as the chief of the Law Enforcement Branch of the Governor's Office of Emergency Services.

Smith would not say whether she was still interested in the lieutenant job.