(FORTUNE Magazine) – Just like the universe, the law of discrimination keeps expanding. It has done more of the same in the past few months, to ecstatic reviews in the media, where the present naysayer is as usual the only character twitching and raising an eyebrow (he can still do both at the same time). The latest burst of intergalactic growth has come in two areas: (1) The Supreme Court ruled unanimously that it would be a neat idea to enlarge the law of sex discrimination once again. As is well known, Congress added sex bias to the 1964 Civil Rights Act with virtually no discussion on the floor but with a widespread presumption that it was talking about discrimination in hiring, pay, and promotions. Around the late Seventies, a number of state courts began interpreting the law to bar sexual harassment, basically defined to mean demands for sexual favors in the workplace. In a late hit in 1986, the U.S. Supreme Court expanded the concept of harassment to cover ''hostile environments,'' a term that takes us from the casting couch to such offenses as persistent telling of dirty jokes and pin-up girls on factory walls. This enlargement of the law has itself been steadily enlarged by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), which has issued rulings applying the hostile-environment concept to racial, religious, and national- origin minorities, plus the aged and the handicapped. In the latest expansion of sex-discrimination law, our High Court overruled a number of district courts about what it was that a plaintiff had to show to prove a hostile-environment case. The new ruling is that one need not claim to have been damaged. One need not point to signs of psychological distress or impaired work ability -- only to an environment that is uniquely unpleasant to women or to any of those other protected groups. Sounding utterly defeated, Justice Scalia glumly signed onto the new decision (Harris v. Forklift Systems Inc.), noting that past Court decisions combined with the ''inherently vague statutory language'' left him no choice. One reason for the endless expansion of laws on bias is that each new step brings onstage another horror story -- in the Harris case a loutish and abusive boss nobody cares to defend. But the parade of rulings has created a large anomaly in the law of the workplace. It has created a class of workers protected as no others are. As will be appreciated by any reader of FORTUNE's occasional reports on ''tough bosses,'' a certain number of workplace denizens are utterly at the mercy of boors and crypto-sadists, and have absolutely no recourse except to reach for another Mylanta tablet. An interesting question is why government boor protection should be unavailable to the average worker but offered enthusiastically when the boorish behavior takes a racial, or sexual, or disability-related turn. (2) This question seems especially relevant in light of the other recent expansion of the bias laws. It has come in the form of an EEOC brief, filed in support of a Rhode Island woman alleging discrimination because of her obesity. (She is 5 foot 3 and weighs over 300 pounds.) Our own opinion, which rhymes, is that the brief is beyond belief. There seems to be no doubt that EEOC is properly applying the law in one respect: The woman is clearly covered by the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA), which among other things bars discrimination against the handicapped. What's weird about the commission's argument is the part wherein we get to consider whether her disability is immutable or correctable. Specifically, is she capable of dieting, of reducing her weight, of ceasing to be obese? When we sat down to read the EEOC's brief, we were guessing it would argue -- based on recent data suggesting a biological basis for obesity -- that she couldn't help herself, that her condition was no less immutable than one's sex or race, and that she was therefore entitled to just as much protection as are women and minorities. It turns out, however, that this is not the commission's position at all. The EEOC is arguing that she is entitled to protection even if she could diet away her problem. ''It is not necessary that a condition be involuntary or immutable to be covered under the . . . ADA,'' says the brief. It adds that the law's protection is clearly available even in cases where ''an individual contributed to his or her impairment'' and mentions the examples of sufferers from emphysema or heart disease whose problems go back to their smoking or eating habits. It seems to us, however, that the proper question to ask is not whether the woman brought the disease on herself but whether it is now correctable. And if it is, why should the government be offering her special protection, against tough bosses or anybody else? Anyway, it is hard to believe the EEOC needs the extra business -- to mention an argument that has never prevailed yet.