The Trump administration’s abandonment of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in a pending worker-discrimination case at the U.S. Supreme Court is raising fresh questions about the agency’s independent authority in lower courts to make its own arguments.

The EEOC regularly brings cases and makes filings in federal trial and appellate courts, suing companies over their employment practices, but the U.S. Justice Department speaks for the agency, and many others, at the U.S. Supreme Court.