As for the law, I think you’re reading a LOT into a few ambiguously worded sentences, especially when they’re removed from their context and when there’s billions of pages of similar legal jargon from millions of other rulings.
Instead of go through each point, let me just state how I think things should work, say that I think this is much closer to how the legal system actually DOES work than you’re trying to imply, and agree that anywhere where the actual legal system deviates from this methodology, I disagree with it:

I think that everyone should have the exact same rights to seek reperations if any form of harrassment has caused them demonstrable and unavoidable harm. No one should be able to sue just because they overheard something they didn’t like once or twice, rather the harrassment must be specific enough to affect their job (either forcing them to quit or demolishing their hopes for advancement), or extreme enough to cause demonstrable emotional/mental damage (after they make appropriate efforts to avoid that damage themselves, ie asking the people talking to stop, talking to the boss about it, etc).
Now, this means that when a minority gets harrassed, there’s a good chance it will be by a racist; when a woman gets harrassed, there’s a good chance it will be by a misogynist or a sexual predator; when a gay person gets harrassed, there’s a good chance it will be by a homphobe; when a fat person or smoker gets harrassed, there’s a good chance it will be by a health freak, and etc. If you did harrass someone about their color sense to the same extent the plaintiff in this article was harrassed, they should have exactly the same rights to sue, under exactly the same statutes. Of course, this particle scenario is very unlikely to ever happen, which is why you never read about it.
So yes, you’re more likely to read news stories about minorities, gays, and women sueing for harrassment, but I don’t think you can really characterize the fact that these groups are more likely to get harrassed in an extreme and damaging way as ‘extra rights’.

However, any restraints on speech stemming from these anti-discrimination provisions are merely incidental to the statutes’ objective of remedying racial discrimination. As the Supreme Court has noted, “[w]here the government does not target conduct on the basis of its expressive content, acts are not shielded from regulation merely because they express a discriminatory idea or philosophy.” R.A.V. v. St. Paul Minnesota, 505 U.S. 377, 389 (1992).3 The Supreme Court has found that sufficiently severe or pervasive harassment on the basis of a prohibited category, including religion, race, or national origin, constitutes “employment discrimination” and is therefore actionable under federal law.

I have no problem with the rationale for denying first amendment rights protection given (whats seems to be liberal) case precedent. However, it’s in fact the case precedent that bothers me. There is something fundamentally wrong about giving extra-constitutional rights to some groups to ‘remedy racial discrimination’ . I see no reason why some citizens should enjoy extra constitutional rights that seek to censor other citizens from expressing their first amendment rights when that expression can be construed as harrasment.

According to the rationale I quote, and the one you seem to support, only harassment of certain kind is constrained. That harassment must fall under one of these categories ‘religion, race, or national origin’. Lets say in the big lab I were to harass a researcher for months on end about them liking the color brown. If they were to sue me for damages, I could argue that my first amendment rights protects me from being sued for expressing an anti-liking the color brown sentiment. In the case we are currently discussing, the rationale used to allow the case seeking damages to proceed, would not work. Only groups that represent race, origin, or religion. Why do groups of race, religion and origin enjoy protections from expression of first amendment while other groups do not? What justification can one give for unequal application of the law?

Why are you okay with grant extra-constitutional rights to some citizens?

Last week, the federal district judge in this case (Doe v. City of New York & Bruce Tefft) held that plaintiff’s case may go forward — that, if the facts are as the plaintiff alleges them to be, Tefft can be financially liable based on the anti-Islam/anti-Muslim/anti-Arab speech

Strongly implies that in order for the case to proceed, a federal judge had to approve it was okay to seek damages against this defendant. Prior to this ruling, it would be a fair assumption to say that not anyone can sue anybody for anything. Since prior to this ruling their was some question as to whether this plaintiff could sue this defendant.

Stated otherwise, whats the point of this ruling if the plaintiff could sue the defendant for damages?

Now that I’m thinking about it, why do some republicans argue for tort reform to protect doctors from being excessive sued for malpractice. The statement ‘anyone can sue anybody for anything’ just doesn’t ring true to me.

As I was reading the summary I came across this:

On February 16, 2006, Plaintiff filed a charge of employment discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) alleging race, religion, and national origin discrimination and retaliation against defendant City of New York. On September 28, 2006, the EEOC issued a Notice of Right to Sue, and Plaintiff filed suit in the Southern District of New York on December 5, 2006, claiming that the City of New York violated his rights under Title VII, and that both the City of New York and Tefft violated his rights under 42 U.S.C. § 1981. Plaintiff also sued both Tefft and the City of New York under New York Executive Law section 290 and New York City Administrative Code section 8-101.

I wouldn’t be ok with it because none of our conversations were anything that anyone reasonable should need to see a psychologist about, none of them were ever directed at any of our co-workers specifically, and we would have stopped any conversations/topics anyone told us they were uncomfortable with. The situation in this article was clearly very different, most court rulings have clauses about how ‘a reasonable person’ would have reacted in them, so I don’t think a crazy person who actually was upset enough to see a psychologist but never said anything to us about it could actually get anything, and we weren’t going around to our colleagues and saying that one person we worked with specifically couldn’t be trusted and had no place working there based solely on race. You really are trying to make a slippery slope argument here, but you’ve alwasy dismissed MY slippery slope arguements for things like torture and wire tapping, and honestly I think the distance between secretly detaining foreigners and secretly detaining US citizens is much smaller than the distance between what the guy in this article was doing and our discussion in the Big lab.

Also, I’m not sure that there’s a real First Ammendment argument to make here, since this was settled in civil (rather than judicial) court. No one has said that the guy is not allowed to say these types of things. However, he has created a hostile work environment which will probably cost the victim a huge amount of income over his lifetime, either from lost promotion opportunities or if he has to quit, and that’s something that you can sue for REGARDLESS of how it was achieved. It’s kind of like claiming that a boss saying ’sleep with me or I’ll fire you’ is protected speech under the First Ammendment: yes, he CAN say that, but what he’s actually DOING if he means it is actionable. Copyright infringement is similar; you’re not being sued for saying the words of the stolen material, you’re being sued for the economic damage that act causes to the copyright holder.

Also note that this guy was a government employee. Since we consumers don’t have the option of not buying government services in protest of them hiring racist people like this defendant, it seems like you should be more ok with government employees having this type of recourse than with employees in private companies having them. Does that change your feeling about it at all?

Had someone from our lab seen a psychiatrist because of our discussion you would be okay with them suing you for damages?

Note that ANYONE can sue ANYONE for ANYTHING; they just have to be able to show damages. It’s not illegal to say these things in the workplace, it’s just that if they do demonstrable harm (and I believe it has to be monetary harm, ie ‘psychological damages’ only apply if they caused you to seek expensive therapy or lose income), so I doubt anyone could make a strong case in reference to any of our discussions (since to my knowledge no one quit, was fired, or saw a psychiatrist because of them).