Response to Affirmative Action critics

Well, the school year is over and I've already graduated, but the tough task of Daily Columnists doesn't end there - I just found some responses to my Affirmative Action column which I would like to address. First of all, I realize that men are 49% of the population - that's why I called them a minority, mostly ironically.

Secondly, the stats I mentioned are not incomparable, but if you need more data, I will gladly provide it. If you go school by school and look at the admission data, you will find a trend slightly higher acceptance rates (3 to 4 percent) for men than women. This may not seem like much, but when Northwestern receives 25,000 applications in a year, that amounts to up to a thousand women who were denied only because of their gender. Check the facts for yourself:

http://www.ugadm.northwestern.edu/commondata/2007-08/c.htm
http://www.brown.edu/Administration/Institutional_Research/documents/Brown_CDS07_08.pdf
http://www.yale.edu/oir/cds.pdf

If you don't think it should be called Affirmative Action, fine - come up with a more negative name, because it seems to me to be a pretty hideous practice. As to the equal-gender environment argument, I couldn't open a sports bar and deny service to women because it made my male patrons uncomfortable, could I? Why then should we allow the same from collegiate admissions?