ST. PETER — When he left his small Iowa hometown a few years ago, Garret Rorem says he was used to being able to speak his conservative views freely and not have a whole lot of opposition.

Then he came to Gustavus Adolphus College. And he says all that changed.

No, he wasn’t persecuted outright. No one painted black elephants on his dorm-room door or left him anonymous messages telling him to leave ... or else.

But right away freshman year, he said, he was made to feel unwelcome for being a kid with conservative beliefs on a liberal campus. And this year, Rorem says, he was yelled at by an instructor after disagreeing with his criticism of a conservative philosopher.

“Class discussion typically involved 30 students and the professor against me,” Rorem said. “And when a professor yells at me ‘You’re wrong!’ you worry about what kind of grade you’re gonna get.”

He dropped that class. But the feelings of isolation didn’t stop. And he says he’s not alone. In fact, a handful of other students, all members of the College Republicans, recently drafted a document of concerns titled “College Republicans’ Formal Document of Grievances and Objectives.”

It outlines their objections over: how the college’s diversity center was run last semester; school-sponsored fliers they say promote acceptance of gays and lesbians; instructors who openly ridicule conservatism or Republicans; and other complaints.

The document, however, wasn’t meant to be made public. But after Rorem shared it with the College Democrats in hopes of spurring cooperation and healthy debate, the document was leaked to the entire campus community.

And now the issues are, as they say, out of the closet.

In response, college deans Hank Toutain and Mark Braun and Residential Life Director Charlie Strey met with Rorem and fellow College Republican Carla Shutrop.

Rorem says the first meeting went well, and college officials seemed to listen.

But the second meeting: “We felt they were trying to poke holes,” Rorem said. “Unfortunately, we had some arguments on semantics that chewed up a bunch of our time.”

For example, one of their beefs involves a former diversity center director who Rorem says openly led anti-Republican chants and passed out pamphlets at a protest gathering.

Toutain said the person was simply there to keep the peace.

“They said the diversity center director lodged a protest against a student known to be a conservative,” Toutain said. “We told them that it wasn’t true, that I knew who organized the protest, and that the director of the diversity center was present, etc.”