Rep. Joyce Beatty, an Ohio Democrat and ex officio Kennedy Center member, filed an emergency request in federal court to prevent the Kennedy Center’s board from returning President Trump’s name to the building’s exterior.
The Kennedy Center’s Trump-aligned board voted earlier this month to inscribe the president’s name on the facade, with proposed text reading “The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Restored and Renovated By President Donald J. Trump.” The board’s resolution stated the institution “would be in financial ruin without President Trump’s unique stature as both an unparalleled fundraiser and world-class developer.” Plans also included renaming the plaza in front of the center and potentially adding another inscription if a Trump Kennedy Center Fund reached $100 million in donations.
Beatty’s legal representatives, Norm Eisen and Nathaniel Zelinsky, characterized the board’s actions as “clear violations” of a prior court order. The Kennedy Center announced it would not engrave Trump’s name before September 8 to allow legal arguments to proceed. U.S. District Court Judge Christopher Cooper had ruled in May that the Kennedy Center illegally added Trump’s name to the building and ordered its removal. The institution complied in June but maintained tarps and scaffolding at the location where the name previously appeared.
Federal law designated the performing arts center as a living memorial to President John F. Kennedy in 1964, the year following his assassination. The statute explicitly prohibits the board of trustees from converting the center into a memorial to any other individual or placing another person’s name on the building’s exterior. Kennedy Center lawyers declined to commit this week to removing the scaffolding, asserting it remains necessary for “water testing and structural repairs to the roof overhang.”
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