The U.S. Supreme Court is set to consider a case that may have major implications for the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act.

The high court will hear arguments in a matter known as A.J.T. v. Osseo Area Schools on Monday. The case centers on whether students with disabilities must show that schools acted in “bad faith or gross misjudgment” in order to claim that their rights were violated under the ADA or Section 504.

But in a last-minute twist, the litigation is now about much more than school-based discrimination claims.

The case was brought by the parents of Ava Tharpe, a Minnesota teenager who has a severe form of epilepsy known as Lennox-Gastaut Syndrome. She is unable to attend school in the morning because her seizures are most frequent during that part of the day. As a result, her parents wanted their school district, Osseo Area Schools, to provide instruction into the evening so that Tharpe could have a full day of school beginning at noon, but the district declined the accommodation.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit determined that the Osseo Area Schools failed to provide Tharpe with a free appropriate public education in violation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. But, the court dismissed discrimination claims brought under the ADA and the Rehabilitation Act, finding that because the alleged wrongdoing was related to educational services, it must meet a higher standard.

“When the alleged ADA and Section 504 violations are ‘based on educational services for disabled children,’ a school district’s simple failure to provide a reasonable accommodation is not enough to trigger liability,” reads the opinion, which cites a 1982 case. “Rather, a plaintiff must prove that school officials acted with ‘either bad faith or gross misjudgment.'”

Attorneys for Tharpe’s family appealed to the Supreme Court noting that lower courts are divided on whether to employ this different standard, which has only applied to disability discrimination cases in schools.

But, in a brief filed with the Supreme Court in late March, attorneys for the Osseo Area Schools widened their argument, saying that the higher standard “is the correct standard across the board, both in schools and out.”

“Every textual and contextual indication demonstrates that Section 504 and Title II (of the ADA) cover only intentional discrimination. The statutes do not impose liability for nondiscriminatory, good-faith denials of requested accommodations,” reads the school district’s brief.

The district’s latest response is a “massive flip-flop” that threatens disability rights protections more broadly, according to Tharpe’s attorneys.

“Before, the district described Ava’s ‘question presented’ as ‘narrow’ and impacting only school-age children with disabilities, … but now it asks this court to embrace a new ‘across the board’ rule that would impair the rights of all victims of disability discrimination,” they wrote in a brief to the Supreme Court. “The district’s approach would gut the ADA and Rehabilitation Act in their most paradigmatic applications. It would violate the text, flout precedent, and upend settled law across the country.”

Roman Martinez, Tharpe’s attorney, said the ramifications of the school district’s argument could be seismic for people with disabilities.

“The district’s new arguments would revolutionize disability law, stripping legal protections from all victims of disability discrimination and essentially eliminating the duty to provide reasonable accommodations,” Martinez told Disability Scoop.

Kay Villella, a spokesperson for the Osseo Area Schools, said the district is “committed to the principles and the ideals” of IDEA, but could not comment specifically on Tharpe without permission from her parents.

“There is 40 years of precedent in the 8th Circuit and five other circuit courts that requires a showing that the school district did something outside of the professional scope of practice in order to award money damages,” Villella said, noting that students with disabilities can always make claims with their state or the federal department of education or pursue alternative dispute resolution under IDEA.

More than a dozen disability advocacy groups as well as the Trump administration have filed amicus briefs supporting Tharpe’s position. Meanwhile, several groups representing school leaders and seven states filed briefs backing the school district.