No, Trump Can’t Legally Rename the Kennedy Center

The Kennedy legacy is being challenged by a brain-wormed health secretary and a chaotic candidate for Congress, but for now, the Kennedy Center is a bit safer. Ohio Democratic representative Joyce Beatty sued Trump in December to stop his board from changing the center’s name to the Trump Kennedy Center, to restore her voting rights as an ex officio, and over the board’s choice to close the center for two years for renovations. Today, she got wins on all three fronts.

Regarding the name change, Judge Christopher Cooper ordered that the building must remove Trump’s name from the façade. “The Kennedy Center’s organic statute 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,” Cooper wrote. “Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it.” The Trump-appointed board changed the name in December. Now it must go back.

Beatty also regained her voting rights after being fired from the board and stripped of her trustee voting rights in 2025. “The Center’s organic statute makes no distinction between the powers of general and ex officio trustees,” Cooper wrote. “Nothing in the statute permits the Board to discriminate categorically between the two as to fundamental trustee rights.” 

Finally, she sued Trump to stop the board from closing the center for two years for renovations. On this, she got a temporary win. Cooper ruled that the board based the decision to close “on an insufficient, one-sided presentation of information and neglected to consider the full range of its statutory obligations and potential adverse consequences of closure on programming and memorial functions.” However, the injunction on closing the center is not necessarily permanent. Cooper noted that the decision does not “categorically prohibit the Board from closing the Center should it come to this decision anew after independently balancing its multiple obligations to the Center in a prudent fashion.” At least if that happens, Beatty will be able to vote on it.