Abstract
Legal cases involving music education offer a view of particular controversies at a given historical moment. I surveyed eight court cases drawn from the LexisNexis database to assess the content of legal disputes within the context of the development of music education as a curricular subject in the United States prior to 1940. Each of these cases reached the highest appellate court in the jurisdiction in which it was filed. I then grouped cases into three categories: challenges to music’s status as a curricular subject within the public schools, challenges to the legality of using taxpayer funds to support music programs, and contract disputes. Conclusions suggest that when legal controversies arose, the courts supported the inclusion of music education within the curriculum by affirming the legal authority of school districts to offer quality competent instruction in this area.
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