The court ruled that the board’s decision to rename the Kennedy Center was unlawful and ordered Trump’s name removed from the building’s facade, as well as from all official branding of the institution.
The judge of the Federal District Court in Washington said the law passed by Congress when the center was created “quite clearly” assigns it President Kennedy’s name.
“Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it,” the judge wrote.
In the same order, the court temporarily barred the center from closing this summer for reconstruction.
The ruling came in response to a lawsuit filed by Representative Joyce Beatty, an Ohio Democrat and an ex officio member of the Kennedy Center board. She challenged both the renaming of the institution and plans to close it from July. Her lawyers argued that the renovation was “an attempt to hide the embarrassment caused by falling ticket sales.”
In December, the center’s board of trustees, a majority of whose members are Trump allies, voted to add the president’s name to the institution’s title. Soon afterward, an inscription appeared on the marble facade: “The Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.”
In February, Trump said the center would close for the summer, describing the building as “dilapidated” and in urgent need of renovation. In March, the board approved the plan, but the judge concluded that its members had not sufficiently assessed the consequences of such a decision.
At the same time, the judge noted that the order does not prevent the board from reconsidering reconstruction in the future. But, he said, it should do so only after preparing “sufficient information to make a reasoned and independent decision.”