The U.S. Supreme Court asked the U.S. Department of Justice on Tuesday to weigh in on a petition to revive a discrimination case accusing Linear Controls Inc. of making black oil rig workers toil outside in the heat while their white colleagues worked in the air-conditioned interior.

The nation’s highest court invited the solicitor general to file a brief on Linear Controls electrician David Peterson’s petition asking the court to clarify what treatment workers can challenge under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which bars employers from mistreating workers because of their race, sex, religion or other protected traits.

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Solicitor General Noel Francisco has already called on the Supreme Court to tidy up circuit precedent on what sorts of treatment Title VII covers, said Stanford Law School professor Pamela Karlan, who represents Peterson. Karlan noted Tuesday that Francisco referenced a “significant and widespread misreading” as to what actions Title VII covers earlier this year in a case involving the federal government. But Francisco said in the same breath that that case was a poor fit for review.

“We hope that the government, and ultimately the court, will agree that Mr. Peterson’s case is an excellent vehicle for addressing this issue,” Karlan told Law360.

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Peterson is represented by Karlan and Brian Fletcher of the Stanford Law School Supreme Court Litigation Clinic and Daniel E. Broussard Jr.