Ever since Donald Trump announced he was renaming the Kennedy Center after himself, the pushback has been relentless. Philip Glass, Renée Fleming, Chuck Redd, and Kristy Lee were among many acts to cancel events at the "Trump-Kennedy Center," and the Washington National Opera left the venue after 55 years. In February, Trump revealed he was closing the center for two years for renovations. Today, a federal judge ordered Trump's name off the Kennedy Center and blocked the planned closure.
US District Judge Casey Cooper said the board violated the law by adding Trump's name to the Kennedy Center, saying the law "makes crystal clear that the Center is to be named for President Kennedy, and it cannot bear any other formal name or public memorial based on the Board's unilateral say-so," per his 94-page opinion. He added that "Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it."
Cooper ruled that officials have two weeks to strip any signage from the Kennedy Center that has Trump's name and update its website to take away all references to the "Trump Kennedy Center" or the "Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts." The center is blocked from "displaying, installing, or maintaining any physical or digital signage on the Kennedy Center building or grounds that designates, suggests, or implies that the institution is named for any person other than President John F. Kennedy."
As for the closure, he wrote in his ruling, "There is no evidence that the Board took account of its full range of statutory obligations in determining that a wholesale shuttering of the Kennedy Center was appropriate. In short, there is no evidence before the Court that the Kennedy Center Board of Trustees considered how it would accomplish its full legislative mandate during the closure period." He concluded that the center may move forward with the closure and renovations after fully considering the impact.
