Workers began dismantling President Donald Trump's name from the Kennedy Center's facade early Saturday morning, completing a court-ordered removal that had become a flashpoint between the performing arts institution and the federal judiciary over who holds authority to rename a congressionally chartered building.
A federal judge had ruled in late May that the Kennedy Center's board lacked the power to unilaterally rebrand the venue. "Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it," U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper wrote on May 29. The deadline for compliance was noon on Saturday, and construction crews worked through the night to meet it.
Trump's name had been affixed to the building's exterior in December after the board, which the president had handpicked, voted to add his name before "The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts." Onlookers gathered Saturday to watch workers remove the lettering that had replaced signage in place since the building's construction began in 1964.
The Trump administration had requested a 12-hour extension late Friday, citing thunderstorms as the reason for the delay. Justice Department lawyers wrote that removal work would conclude in the early morning hours of June 13. The judge did not immediately grant the request, and the work proceeded over the weekend.
By Monday, Trump's name had also vanished from the Kennedy Center's website, which reverted to its original branding. Internal signage throughout the building had already been removed in compliance with the judge's order.
In a last-ditch legal maneuver, the Kennedy Center filed an emergency request with the appeals court on Friday to block the removal, introducing a previously undisclosed argument. The center claimed that removing Trump's name would trigger a change in its bylaws requiring it to return hundreds of millions of dollars that donors had pledged specifically because of the Trump branding. The appeals court denied the request Friday night.
The center did not specify when the bylaw change was made, who approved it, or exactly how much money might be at stake. It also did not respond to questions about these details, leaving the financial claims largely unsubstantiated in the court record.
Democratic Rep. Joyce Beatty of Ohio, the ex officio board member who filed the lawsuit challenging the rebranding, called the removal a victory for democratic institutions. "The rule of law prevailed, and that is worth celebrating," Beatty said in a statement Saturday. "Let this send a message across the country: when we stand up, fight back, and defend our democracy, we can win."
The original dispute began when Trump first floated the idea of attaching his name to the Kennedy Center in an August post on Truth Social. The subsequent board vote to rebrand the 60-year-old national institution sparked immediate legal challenges and public backlash.
Judge Cooper's May ruling also blocked a planned two-year closure of the center that Trump's board had sought to undertake renovations, which the judge characterized as an "ill-informed and seemingly preordained decision."
Author Sarah Mitchell: "The Kennedy Center stood its ground in court but lost on the merits, and the judge was right: Congress chartered this building, not a presidential appointee."
Comments