Stanford Law School professor Pamela Karlan is set to be at the U.S. Supreme Court lectern  Oct. 8 to argue that federal civil rights law protects employees from job discrimination because of their sexual orientation.

The justices have consolidated two cases for argument and will hear arguments in a third case, all of which confront the contours of Title VII, which forbids discrimination “because of sex.” Federal appeals courts are divided over whether that statutory language includes LGBT employees. The cases arrived from New York and Atlanta-based federal appeals courts.