A federal judge in Washington ordered on Friday that the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts remove President Trump’s name from the building’s facade and all official branding, finding that the board’s decision to do so was unlawful.
Judge Christopher R. Cooper of the Federal District Court in Washington wrote in a 94-page order that the law Congress passed to establish the performing arts center made “crystal clear” that the institution was to be named for President Kennedy.
“Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it,” the judge wrote.
The judge also temporarily blocked the institution from closing this summer for renovations, months after the president announced a two-year closure.
Representatives from the Kennedy Center did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The order was in response to a lawsuit by Representative Joyce Beatty, Democrat of Ohio, who is an ex officio member of the Kennedy Center’s board. She objected to both the renaming and the plans to close the institution starting in July, which her lawyers argued was in fact a decision “designed to hide their embarrassment about declining ticket sales.”
The center’s board of trustees, a vast majority of whom are allies to Mr. Trump, voted in December to add the president’s name to the performing arts center. Shortly after, new lettering was added to the building’s marble facade, which now reads: “The Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.”
Mr. Trump announced in February that the center would be closing this summer, calling the building “dilapidated” and in desperate need of renovations. The board approved the plan in March, but the judge found that it had not done its due diligence in considering the consequences of such a decision.
“None of the board members had sufficient information in advance of the March 16 meeting to make a well-considered decision to close the center,” the judge wrote.
Judge Cooper noted that his decision did not prevent the center’s board from deciding to close the institution in the future for renovations but urged it to do so after preparing itself with “sufficient information to make a considered, independent decision, taking account of its obligation to both maintain and operate a premiere arts venue and its solemn duty to memorialize a fallen president.”
