Trump can’t rename Kennedy Center, judge rules

A federal judge on Friday barred President Donald Trump from adding his name to that of the Kennedy Center, as he did in late December, saying that only Congress has the authority to make such a change.

Judge Christopher Cooper also temporarily blocked the Washington, D.C., cultural landmark from being closed for two years for renovations at the behest of Trump.

Cooper said the Kennedy Center’s Board of Trustees did not balance its obligations to the center in deciding to shutter for renovations.

But the judge said the board might be able to close for that purpose “after independently balancing its multiple obligations to the Center in a prudent fashion.”

The Kennedy Center’s Board of Trustees in December voted to rename the institution the “Trump Kennedy Center,” 10 months after Trump removed several trustees from the board and appointed himself as a trustee. The center’s facade was changed to reflect the decision, as were other signs around the facility.

“The Kennedy Center’s organic statute makes crystal clear that the Center is to be named for President [John] Kennedy, and it cannot bear any other formal name or public memorial based on the Board’s unilateral say-so,” Cooper wrote in his order in U.S. District Court in Washington.

“Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it.”

Cooper’s order came as a result of a lawsuit against Trump by Rep. Joyce Beatty, an Ohio Democrat and ex officio member of the Kennedy Center’s Board of Trustees.

Beatty, like other ex officio members of the board, had her voting rights stripped by the board in May 2025.

Cooper, in his decision Friday granting Beatty summary judgment on her request that Trump be blocked from renaming the center, also ordered that she have her trustee voting rights restored.

“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,” the judge wrote.

“And stripping ex officio trustees of their voting rights runs afoul of common-law trust principles incorporated into the statute, principles which presumptively place trustees on equal footing when it comes to participating in the trust’s administration.”

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