The New School Free Press has published a full transcript of an interview it conducted with New School president Bob Kerrey last month. In it, Kerrey talks about how officials monitor Twitter during protests, says that someone getting “knocked to the ground” isn’t police brutality, and appears to promise that a student will be seated on the New School board of trustees before long.

Kerrey has been the subject of intense criticism from students and faculty alike during his tenure at the New School, and the NSFP interview took place just twelve days after a student occupation of a campus building that was aimed — in part — at forcing his resignation. That occupation, the second at the New School in the last six months, ended in nearly two dozen arrests.

Extended excerpts follow…

Kerrey begins by discussing how the police became involved in the April 10 occupation:

“They will not move to remove individuals in any building we have unless the university is the complainant. … Since this followed an occupation, a successful negotiation, and since they had declared their purpose was to get me to resign and I had no intent of doing so, it seemed to me the appropriate thing to do was be the complainant in this case which I was shortly before seven o’clock Friday morning.”

“It was actually a bit frustrating for me because I would’ve moved much faster, but they requested drawings of the building, there was some Twittering activity, they didn’t know who was there. There was Twittering activity saying there were 60 or 70 people in there. They began. They brought their hostage negotiating people and began negotiating.”

Kerrey is asked whether he was willing to negotiate with the students:

“There’s two definitions of the word negotiate. You have to understand that. One is negotiate for terms, which is what we did in December. Having given almost every single item, including amnesty, it didn’t seem to me to be appropriate to negotiate for additional terms. The second kind of negotiation was unquestionably occurring, which is, ‘Will you leave peacefully? Can we get you to take the locks off the doors, open the doors, and allow us to come in, and without any use of force at all to arrest and book you?’ “

“I do not think that we should allow an occupation of a building. … I do not think we should categorize that as a legitimate protest. If you do, it would be relatively easy to shut this university down. … This university would be very easy to close down. All you have to do is occupy a building. Actually, first thing you have to get is 35 or 40 people to register as students and begin to protest the corporatization of the university policies, align yourself in opposition to the president, move in relatively easy fashion move five people per building. … Lock the building down. Remove anyone that’s in the building. Then issue a manifesto aligning yourself  against multinational corporations, WTO, and the president and the university community will say, ‘Oh my god, you can’t remove them because they’re on the right side of these arguments.’ “

On the use of pepper spray against protesters:

“I’m going to tell [Police Commissioner] Ray Kelly, I think they should take pepper spray out of their arsenal. It’s one of the most ineffective and provocative tools. ‘Oh my God, pepper spray!’ You could do more dam age to yourself with a can of Right Guard.”

On student involvement in governance:

“One of the things we’ve attempted to do is create new avenues for both student eng agement and student protest, the most important one being the University Student Senate. In spite of some of the statements I’ve heard coming from their leadership that we don’t listen, we don’t respond — last year they brought five things in at the end of the school year. We did every single one. … We’re trying to create as many legitimate avenues of protest and eng agement and involvement with the decision making of the university as possible including an active evaluation of how — not if, but how — to get a student representative on the Board of Trustees.”

On the theft of copies of the New School Free Press earlier in the semester:

“You cannot allow student newspapers to be stolen without comment and the academic community did. … I believe strongly that if it had been a right wing organization identifying themselves as sympathetic to Dick Cheney stole the New School Free Press edition, the Faculty Senate would’ve voted immediately to have an emergency meeting that the faculty would’ve condemned the activity. And they were silent.”

On what it would take for him to resign:

“The Board voting for my resignation. … They hired me. They were explicit in what they wanted me to get done and I’ve been working on it since. And I have the confidence in the Board to proceed. The day that confidence ends, that’s the day I’m gone, but its there.”

On a statement he made to the New York Post (“They put on black masks and wander around New York City? We still remember 9/11 around here.”):

“What I was saying was, if you put a ski mask over your head at five o’clock in the morning, don’t be surprised if law enforcement or others say, ‘God, there’s a terrorist.’ It’s a completely natural thing for people to say because that’s what you look like. You have acquired the appearance of somebody who is going to do something that’s bad. Whether it’s terrorist or criminal activity, you’re disguising your appearance. Once the mask comes off you see an innocent young student. That’s what the security guy was describing to me. He’s reaching in and sees these people with masks on. He pulls it off and it was just students. That’s what happened to Carlos Rodriguez who’s been traumatized by this thing. … He’s afraid to go back in the building.”

On the police response:

“I don’t regard a single incident of an individual being knocked to the ground as evidence of police brutality. I think the fact is, maybe they had too many people on the scene, but 19 people left peacefully. There’s one who was injured on 14th street. I don’t consider that to be an excessive use of force.”