When Chris Gruener moved to the San Francisco area to begin graduate school, he looked forward to experiencing the region's renowned tolerance.

Raised in a devout Christian family near Seattle, he'd attended a Baptist high school and a Christian college. He was excited to begin a master's program in English at Sonoma State University. But during his first semester, a classroom incident put a damper on his eagerness.

While lecturing on James Joyce's rejection of the church, a professor drew two mountains with a valley between them on the board, explaining that Joyce's church believed one mountain was man and the other God.

Next he drew a cross in the valley, touching both peaks — a visual metaphor Gruener knew from childhood — and explained that this was Christ on the cross connecting man to God. The professor broke into peals of mocking laughter. The class joined in.

"My heart stopped," Gruener says. "If this were any other religion, the professor wouldn't get away with his remarks — it would be politically incorrect."

Today, on college campuses throughout the U.S., great stress is placed on the importance of treating divergent views with sensitivity. And many religious students say they appreciate the respect with which their beliefs are received.

Yet complaints such as Gruener's are not uncommon and are sometimes heard at schools that pride themselves on being open-minded and tolerant. Christians, from conservative to liberal, say that on a college campus they not infrequently experience overt disrespect — and sometimes discrimination.

Liz Howlson is a senior at the University of Michigan. In a religion class she took, she says, "They talked all about how Christianity has ruined so many things, and I kind of felt embarrassed to be a Christian."

Tension between faith and academics is nothing new. But the role of religion at U.S. colleges and universities — many originally founded by churches — has grown more complicated as schools have grown more secular.

Once it was primarily non-Christians who expressed concerns about religious discrimination. But today, it is just as likely to be America's majority faith group — Christians — who plead for more tolerance on campus.

"There's no way for diverging views [in classes] to be disclosed in an intelligent way," says Nika Elguardo, a devout Christian who last year completed a master's degree at Harvard University. She found the professors there generally respectful of her religious views. But the students were another matter.

At Harvard, she says, secular humanism is the mainstream view. "There are ways of thinking that went against mainstream views ... and students in class were shut down by others" when they expressed those views, Elguardo said.

Ann Carter, a junior at Sonoma State and a Christian active in her church, has also felt disrespected.

She took a multiculturalism class focused on debating topics as diverse as gun control, Hindu theology and vegetarianism. Part of her grade rested on speaking up and sharing her views.

"I'd say God, and talk about Christ. People would laugh at me and [the professor] did nothing."

In liberal strongholds, Christians are often stereotyped, says the Rev. Adam Blons, a member of the University Religious Council at the University of California, Berkeley, and head of that city's First Congregational Church. People are quick to assume that all Christians are humorless fundamentalists bent on converting others, he says.

"You find it at a lot of state universities," says Dan Myers, chairman of the Department of Sociology at University of Notre Dame. "There's an issue, kind of ironic, that those who are attempting to be so open-minded are relatively close-minded about the religion piece of the thing."

Myers attributes this attitude in part to overzealous Christians who tell others they are wrong not to accept Jesus. He also sees it as a reaction to religion's long history of suppressing free thought, though he says he experiences full academic freedom at his Catholic university.

"My take is that Notre Dame has some confidence that its religious commitments can stand up to some scrutiny, challenges and critical thinking," Myers says.

But that's not always the case at more-secular schools, others charge. "The attitude here is if you're of faith, then you are intellectually inferior," Gruener says.

Despite the discomfort they experience, some students say they find good in classroom challenges. "As a Christian I know for myself I've grown so much within my own faith because people are saying all these things to me," Howlson says. "It makes you dig down and search even deeper into the Word of why I do believe, and that's been real positive for me."