Judge orders Trump's name be removed from Kennedy Center

WASHINGTON — A Washington federal judge blocked the Kennedy Center board from closing the decades-old performing arts venue and ordered President Donald Trump’s name to be removed from the building.

The board of trustees for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts may not, for now, continue with its plans to shutter the center for two years, as it voted to do in March, Judge Christopher “Casey” Cooper of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, an Obama appointee, held Friday.

The judge also barred the center from displaying any signage on the building indicating that it “is named for any person other than President John F. Kennedy.”

He ordered it to remove the current lettering referring to the building as the “The Donald J. Trump And John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts” within 14 days. The Kennedy Center also may not distribute any official materials with Trump’s or other names, the judge held.

The decision is a setback to Trump’s efforts to reshape Washington’s historic landmarks aesthetically. Other legal challenges also target the president’s efforts to construct a new ballroom on the site of the White House’s demolished East Wing, paint the granite exterior of the 19th-century Eisenhower Executive Office Building, change the color of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, and build a 250-foot triumphal arch.

In a related case, however, Cooper denied preservationists’ bid to halt planned renovations at the performing arts venue, saying the DC Preservation League hadn’t established that the project “goes so clearly beyond the Kennedy Center’s statutory authority or so clearly neglects applicable statutory obligations” for the court to intervene.

Cooper explained in the first case that the board relied “on an insufficient, one-sided presentation of information” when it decided to close the center for two years for renovations. And federal law “makes crystal clear” that the center is meant to be named for Kennedy, the judge said.

The judge clarified that his decision doesn’t prevent the center from continuing with needed repairs, nor does it prevent the board from deciding later to close the center “should it come to this decision anew after independently balancing its multiple obligations to the Center in a prudent fashion.”

In the related ruling Friday allowing renovations to move forward, Cooper relied on the center’s executive director’s testimony that the site would not be demolished or rebuilt.

“The Court nevertheless remains circumspect about the possibility that the Kennedy Center renovation will encompass more than its Executive Director has promised, especially given the paucity of concrete details as to the project’s scope,” Cooper wrote. “If the work is, say, more transformative than present testimony suggests or requires permits that the Center has yet to acknowledge or secure, the Court’s legal analysis might look substantially different.”

“In other words,” he added, “this preliminary ruling may not be the ‘final word in this case.”

Lawmaker Victory

The ruling blocking the closure and renaming marks a win for Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio), who sued Trump’s handpicked Kennedy Center board in December after it voted to rename the center for Trump. She later updated her lawsuit to allege the board breached its fiduciary duties with the planned two-year closure.

Beatty is an ex-officio board member as a member of Congress, which created the arts center as a living memorial to President John F. Kennedy after his assassination.

Cooper previously ordered the Kennedy Center’s board to allow Beatty to speak at the March meeting where the board voted to close the center, but he denied her request to be allowed to vote at that meeting.

Beatty’s attorneys have argued that the board failed to fully consider the impact of closing the center, representing a breach of their fiduciary duties. The closure announcement followed declining ticket sales and performer cancellations after Trump was made chair of the board and his name was added to the center’s facade.

Nathaniel Zelinsky of Washington Litigation Group, Beatty’s attorney, argued at an April hearing that the board “did no analysis whatsoever” before voting to close the Kennedy Center for renovations.

At the hearing, Cooper also questioned whether the board was provided with sufficient information to do a cost analysis and if a lawyer advised the board on the legality of renaming the center.

Still, the judge pressed Zelinsky during the hearing on what kind of remedy he could order that wouldn’t “micromanage the Kennedy Center’s construction projects” and warned such an endeavor could be “an exercise in line-drawing.”

Matt Floca, executive director and chief operating officer of the Kennedy Center, testified in April in connection with the preservationists’ lawsuit that there were “no plans” to demolish the performing arts center. But, he said, he couldn’t speak for Trump, and he’s “not in control” of Trump’s “personal decision-making.”

A Washington federal judge ruled in March that Trump doesn’t have authority to construct a ballroom on White House grounds without Congress’ approval. Construction has been allowed to continue while the administration appeals the ruling.

The cases are Beatty v. Trump, D.D.C., No. 1:25-cv-04480, 5/29/26 and DC Preservation League v. Board of Trustees, D.D.C., No. 1:26-cv-00981, 5/29/26.