US President Donald Trump's name is added to the Kennedy Centre last week. Photo / Marvin Joseph, The Washington Post
A Democratic congresswoman sued the Kennedy Centre’s board of trustees today to stop it from adding United States President Donald Trump’s name to the institution, arguing that only Congress has the power to do so.
In a lawsuit filed in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, Representative Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio), an ex-officio member of the Kennedy Centre’s board, claimed that a vote by the board last week to rename the institution “The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Centre for the Performing Arts” exceeded its statutory authority.
She requested that a judge declare it to be void.
Beatty had called into the meeting but was muted when she tried to speak out about the name change, the lawsuit says. The Washington Post reported on the incident last week.
“Because Congress named the centre by statute, changing the Kennedy Centre’s name requires an act of Congress,” the lawsuit says.
It added that “Congress intended the centre to be a living memorial to President Kennedy – and a crown jewel of the arts for all Americans, irrespective of party”.
Roma Daravi, vice-president of public relations at the centre, in a statement to the Post, defended the renaming, saying the “bipartisan Trump Kennedy Centre is here for generations to come”.
Daravi said the “entire board was invited” to attend the board meeting in person “and the privilege of listening in on the meeting was granted to all members, even those without a vote, such as ex-officio member Joyce Beatty”.
The vote by the Kennedy Centre’s board to add Trump’s name to the institution – which has sparked concern among legal experts – marked the most overt effort to date by the President and his allies to remould the famous performing arts centre in his image.
In February, Trump purged members of the board not appointed by him, installed loyalists and became its new chair.
This month, he became the first President to host its annual honours event. Ticket sales have plummeted since Trump took over, a Post analysis found.
Attaching a sitting president’s name breaks with conventions for US presidential memorials. “The Kennedy Memorial is not impacted at all,” Daravi said.
The lawsuit, which was filed by Democracy Defenders Action and the Washington Litigation Group on behalf of Beatty, requested that a judge order all physical and digital branding changes to be reversed.
Trump had acted surprised about the change, but his name was added to the centre’s website and the exterior of the building within 24 hours.
For months leading up to the vote, the President had repeatedly joked about the “Trump-Kennedy Centre”, including at the Kennedy Centre Honours.
Beatty said in the suit that she had attended the board meeting virtually and had been unmuted previously, but that when she identified herself and raised concerns about the renaming, she was muted and received a written message that “she would not be unmuted, and therefore she could not participate in the meeting”.
The court filing called it a “transparent effort” to prevent disagreement and said the proceedings were “mere window dressing for a predetermined decision”.
In 1964, the year after Kennedy was assassinated, Congress passed a statute designating the capital’s National Cultural Centre as “the sole national monument to his memory within the city of Washington and its environs” and naming it the John F. Kennedy Centre for the Performing Arts.
Congress later amended the law to say that “no additional memorials or plaques in the nature of memorials shall be designated or installed in the public areas” of the venue.
Representative Bob Onder (Republican-Missouri) in July introduced a Bill to name the centre after Trump.
Congressional Democrats said they would introduce legislation to remove Trump’s name.
In a series of posts on X, the centre’s president, Richard Grenell, defended the name change as a reflection of its role as a “bipartisan space”.
At the weekend he claimed the memorial to Kennedy was not affected by the board’s action and “therefore the board is allowed to change the name”.
In an email to the Post last week, Roger Colinvaux, a law professor at Catholic University, said the law clearly states that the building’s name is the John F. Kennedy Centre for the Performing Arts.
“Under the statute, the board that voted to change the name not only does not have the authority, but that each member by so voting violated their duty,” he said.
Today, the centre’s website prominently referred to itself as the “Trump Kennedy Centre”, but in other sections it continued to use the name “the Kennedy Centre”.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy jnr is an ex-officio member of the centre’s board. Other members of the Kennedy family reacted with dismay to last week’s vote.
“Some things leave you speechless,” Maria Shriver, a niece of John F. Kennedy, said on X.
“It can no sooner be renamed than can someone rename the Lincoln Memorial,” said Joe Kennedy, the former Democratic congressman from Massachusetts whose great-uncle the building was named for.
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