The Supreme Court may soon be taking up a case that seeks to undo a precedent on whether government officials can restrict religious expression at public school events — and a justice on the court is being called out for what constitutional attorney Andrew Seidel describes as a blatant conflict of interest in the matter.

That justice is Brett Kavanaugh, a Trump-appointed judge who, roughly 25 years ago, argued as a private attorney in the very case a new lawsuit now seeks to overturn.

A private Christian school in Florida sued the Florida High School Athletic Association in 2016 after the state athletic body refused to allow the school to broadcast a prayer over the loudspeakers at a public high school football game, a lawsuit that the Supreme Court is now considering taking up.

The private school is hoping for a victory, which would require the overturning of a precedent set in the year 2000 by the Supreme Court with a similar case, Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe. The issue, Seidel argued in an analysis published Monday in Rolling Stone, is that Kavanaugh, according to federal law, should be required to recuse himself, but has yet to signal he’d step back from the case.

Kavanaugh filed a legal brief on behalf of the private Christian school in late 1999 as a private attorney at the legal firm Kirkland & Ellis, in which he argued that restricting religious expression at public schools amounted to “the full extermination of private religious speech from the public schools.”

“No fair reading of Kavanaugh’s amicus (or friend of the court) brief in the original case would leave anyone with much doubt as to which way he would rule in the new case seeking to overturn that original case,” Seidel wrote.

“...Kavanaugh’s impartiality is reasonably in doubt as the court decides whether to take up the case and rule again on the constitutionality of prayer in public schools. And that’s why he must recuse.”

Federal law clearly stipulates that members of the Supreme Court must recuse themselves from cases when their “impartiality might reasonably be questioned,” and the Supreme Court Code of Conduct mandates a recusal when “an unbiased and reasonable person who is aware of all relevant circumstances would doubt that the justice could fairly discharge his or her duties.”

The Supreme Court is set to decide whether to take up the case at a

closed-door meeting

on Sept. 29. If the court ultimately decides to take up the case, arguments from both the plaintiffs and defendants could come

as early as October

.