Judge says Trump can’t add his name to Kennedy Center and blocks planned closure

By Devan Cole, Betsy Klein, CNN

(CNN) — A federal judge on Friday blocked the Kennedy Center from temporarily closing its doors for a yearslong renovation and said its board violated the law when it added President Donald Trump’s name to the historic performing arts venue.

US District Judge Casey Cooper concluded that the law establishing the center “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.”

“Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it,” Cooper wrote in his 94-page opinion.

Trump signaled shortly after the ruling that he was backing down from his fight to revamp the storied arts center, suggesting he was transferring control to Congress.

“I have instructed the Department of Commerce to make all necessary arrangements with Congress to allow a full and complete transfer of this Institution, giving them the responsibility for its Operation, Maintenance, and Management,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post. He added that while he was being treated “unfairly,” he had “no interest in continuing” unless he was “free” to do what he wanted to do.

The details of such a transfer weren’t immediately clear. Since its founding as a living memorial to President John F. Kennedy, the executive branch has had oversight over the Kennedy Center’s board of trustees while Congress has been responsible for annual appropriations for its operations and maintenance.

Within two weeks, Cooper ruled, officials must remove any signage from the Kennedy Center that includes Trump’s name and update its website to remove all references to the name “Trump Kennedy Center” or the “Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.”

He said the center was permanently blocked from “displaying, installing, or maintaining any physical or digital signage on the Kennedy Center building or grounds that designates, suggests, or implies that the institution is named for any person other than President John F. Kennedy.”

The Kennedy Center has already indicated there are plans to appeal the ruling.

“We are confident that on appeal the court will uphold the board’s will to recognize President Trump’s historic contributions to our nation’s cultural center,” Roma Daravi, the center’s vice president of public relations, said in a statement.

Cooper, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, said the center may still move ahead with renovations to the decades-old building and could later decide to close down the center after its board more fully considered the impact such a move would have on its statutory requirement to maintain some programming at all times.

“There is no evidence that the Board took account of its full range of statutory obligations in determining that a wholesale shuttering of the Kennedy Center was appropriate,” he wrote in a lengthy ruling issued Friday. “In short, there is no evidence before the Court that the Kennedy Center Board of Trustees considered how it would accomplish its full legislative mandate during the closure period.”

Daravi suggested that the Kennedy Center plans to review the judge’s decision on the closure “carefully,” but emphasized that the facility “requires an urgent and significant restoration.”

That includes infrastructure updates for things like HVAC and soffit panels, along with drainage remediation and upgrades to the theater seating.

Lawsuit from Democratic congresswoman

The decisions are a major victory for Democratic Rep. Joyce Beatty, an ex-officio member of the Kennedy Center’s board who sued last year after her fellow board members moved to rename the center. She later revised her complaint after Trump announced plans to shutter the building while a sprawling renovation was undertaken.

“Today’s ruling rightly affirms that this administration’s efforts to rename and close the center have no basis in law,” Beatty said in a statement. “The Kennedy Center is an institution that belongs to the American people, not to Donald Trump.”

Trump, who was elected chairman of the board last year, has overseen major programmatic and leadership changes to the center, leading to slumping ticket sales and major artists pulling out of planned appearances, which some saw as driving the desire to temporarily close.

On his watch, his handpicked board of loyalists approved plans late last year to rename the center the Trump Kennedy Center. And then in March, the board voted for the center to close starting July 7 for a planned two-year renovation.

Beatty, who represents Ohio, has a seat on the board by virtue of her position in Congress. Her challenge centered in part around the idea that board members were not given documents about renovation plans before the vote. The Kennedy Center provided documents to Beatty on the eve of the March board meeting, but they fell far short of the extensive review officials said had taken place to merit the significant closure.

Cooper said on Friday that the tranche of documents handed over to Beatty “focused largely on the renovation work that the board was already aware would take place, not the need to shutter the Kennedy Center.”

The board’s vote on whether to close the center, he wrote, “was foreordained.” The judge pointed to comments from Matt Floca, who has been put in charge of the center, that appeared to show that he was preparing for the total closure months before Trump announced in February plans to shut the building down.

“Whatever happened during that purported four-month incubation period, board input was, most evidently, an afterthought,” Cooper wrote. “Trustees learned about the plan to close the center at the same time as the general public, by social media post. Deprived of time and information, they had no meaningful opportunity to consider perhaps the most momentous decision in the Center’s lifetime since it opened in 1971.”

“President Trump’s assurance that closure would be ‘totally subject to board approval’ rings hollow, as he himself later admitted that it was ‘a little late for the board’ to weigh in because the plan had already been ‘announced.’ To him, Board approval was just a ‘minor detail,’” the judge added.

Former staffers had expressed grave concerns about the damage closure, including warnings that performers would find alternative venues and won’t return, staff with expertise would be hard to replace, and both audiences and donors would dry up.

This story has been updated with additional developments.

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