WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to decide whether Comcast, the nation’s largest cable company, may be sued for race discrimination over its decision not to carry programming from an entertainment company owned by Byron Allen, an African-American entrepreneur.

A federal appeals court in California ruled that the case could move forward under a Reconstruction-era federal law that gives “all persons” the same right to “make and enforce contracts” as “is enjoyed by white citizens.”

A unanimous three-judge panel of the court, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, said that Mr. Allen’s company, Entertainment Studios Networks, had made accusations that were serious enough to avoid dismissal at an early stage of the litigation.

Entertainment Studios said Comcast had expressed interest in its programming but never closed a deal, reversed its position on what Entertainment Studios needed to do to secure carriage, carried every network that its main competitors did except Entertainment Studios and offered space to “lesser known, white owned” networks even as it said it lacked capacity to carry Entertainment Studios.