The Supreme Court on Monday said it will consider three cases to decide whether federal law protects gay and transgender workers from employment discrimination.
The cases mark the first major consideration of gay rights by the justices since the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy, who led a closely divided court through a series of landmark opinions culminating with the constitutional recognition of same-sex marriage.
The court, in brief written orders, said it will hear the cases during its next term, putting the spotlight squarely on Justice Brett Kavanaugh, the former Kennedy clerk who succeeded his former boss last year.
The 53-year-old justice didn’t face the issue during his years on a lower court, but conservatives have tended to read antidiscrimination laws narrowly, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits adverse treatment based on “race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.”
All three cases involve gay or transgender people who allege they were fired because of their sexual orientation.
In one, the New York-based Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overruled its own precedents to allow skydiving instructor Donald Zarda to sue his former employer.
The second case comes from the Atlanta-based 11th Circuit, which reached a different conclusion in a case filed by a gay man fired from his job as child-welfare services coordinator for the juvenile court system in Clayton County, Ga.
The Supreme Court will hear those cases together.
The third case, which will be argued separately, involves a transgender woman who alleges a Detroit funeral home fired from her job as a funeral director and embalmer after she announced she was transitioning to a woman and no longer would present as a man.
The Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in Cincinnati, allowed the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to sue on the woman’s behalf.
The high court is likely to hear oral arguments in the fall, with decisions expected by July 2020.