An Ohio congresswoman is asking a judge to issue an order to take Donald Trump‘s name off the Kennedy Center, contending that the board of the arts institution violated the law in that only Congress can make such a change.
Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-OH) also is asking the court to block the shutdown of the center, which is planned for July, arguing that the board conducted no expert review or consultation but merely followed Trump’s decision to close it. Trump, who is chairman of the board of the center, announced plans for the closure in a social media post February 1, saying such a drastic step was needed as the complex undergoes renovations.
In a motion filed in federal court in Washington on Wednesday, Beatty’s legal team claims that the board’s actions, for the renaming and the closure, breach their fiduciary obligations.
Her attorneys contended that only Congress can change the center’s name, as they designated it as the “sole memorial” to President John F. Kennedy in legislation that passed in 1964, just months after his assassination.
“There is no clearer or more significant breach of fiduciary duty than the Board flouting the central purpose of the institution it is charged with protecting and which Congress enshrined into law: to maintain the Center as a memorial to John F. Kennedy — and to no one else,” Beatty’s legal team wrote in a motion for partial summary judgment.
Read the motion to remove Trump’s name from the Kennedy Center.
The board voted in December to rename the center and, a day after the board’s action, a crew added Trump’s name to the outside of the center, while the name change was represented on the website and social media, among other places. Beatty, an ex officio member, protested that she was prohibited from participating or voting at the board meeting, and filed the lawsuit later that month.
A spokesperson for the Kennedy Center did not immediately return a request for comment.
In her filing, her attorneys cited language in the 1964 law, including that the building would be “designated” to be named after Kennedy. They also cited further congressional mandates, including a 1983 law that “no additional memorials or plaques in the nature of memorials shall be designated or installed in the public areas of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.”
The board’s decision to rename the center was followed by an exodus of artists who backed out of events, including Philip Glass and Renée Fleming. They followed other artists and productions, including Hamilton and Ben Folds, who exited or canceled plans after Trump took control of the center shortly after taking office in his second term.
Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper ordered the center to allow Beatty to participate in a March board meeting and to provide her with informational materials supporting the plans for the center’s closure. Yet at the meeting, the board, dominated by Trump appointees, went ahead with plans to shut down the complex.
Beatty’s legal team called the closure plans a “haphazard and irrational process that portends irreparable damage to a national treasure.” They argued that the documents that Beatty received were four capital maintenance reports commissioned by prior Kennedy Center management in 2021, 2022 and 2024. They all anticipated the center remaining open while the repairs were made.
“Based on nothing more, and seemingly in response to the public and performers fleeing the center after its unlawful renaming in honor of the sitting president and self-appointed chairman of the board, Defendants rushed to close the Kennedy Center,” Beatty’s legal team wrote.
They claimed that the board merely “rubberstamped” Trump’s desire, pointing to a comment the president made at the last meeting. Trump said, “It’s a little late for the board because we’ve already announced it, but these are minor details, but I think everybody agrees.”
“The purpose of closure without that kind of preparation can only be an unlawful demolition-first-ask-questions-later approach that President Trump disastrously adopted with the East Wing of the White House — destroying protected buildings before anyone can stop him,” Beatty’s legal team wrote in the filing.
Trump has argued that the closure is necessary to speed up the renovations, and that keeping it open would disrupt ongoing performances.
In a statement, Beatty said, “Donald Trump’s attempt to rename the Kennedy Center after himself is not just an act of ego. It is an attempt to subvert our Constitution and the rule of law. Congress established the Kennedy Center by law, and only Congress can change its name.”
Her attorneys, Norm Eisen, co-founder and board member of Democracy Defenders Action, and Nathaniel Zelinsky, senior counsel at Washington Litigation Group, said in a statement, “Congress created the John F. Kennedy Center as a living memorial to President Kennedy. Neither Donald Trump nor his handpicked cronies on the Board has the power to ignore the law by renaming or closing it.”
