The topic of the legal response to discrimination is broad and growing. It includes everything from hate crime legislation and governmental prohibition of discrimination in the purchase of housing, cars, and loans, to restrictions on discrimination in the provision of government services and benefits as well as in employment.1 In the latter category alone, the body of law banning discrimination in the workplace has both deepened as the original prohibitions against discrimination on the basis of "race, color, religion, sex, or national origin" (Section 703(a)(1) of Tide VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964) have been interpreted to prohibit a greater array of employer actions and widened as protections have been extended to new classes of workers. Thus, the passage of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and a large array of state and local employment discrimination laws that are more expansive than Tide VII have greatly broadened the number of workers falling into some protected category. As a result of the enormous expansion, it is no longer possible to speak about "discrimination" in the abstract: discrimination against older or disabled workers is obviously very different from, say, discrimination against cigarette smokers—who are now protected by numerous state laws—which, in turn, is different from discrim¬ination on the basis of race, sex, or religion.