Rep. Beatty Urges Court to Intervene After Kennedy Center Board Blatantly Disregards Prior Court Ruling on Renaming and Shutdown
August 18, 2026
Government May Have Damaged the Center’s Historic Marble When Adding Trump’s Name to the Facade
WASHINGTON, D.C.—In a joint status report filed in federal court today, Congresswoman Joyce Beatty (D-OH-03) requested the Court order emergency briefing and a hearing regarding the Board’s unlawful effort to once again put President Donald Trump’s name on the Kennedy Center. Rep. Beatty argued that this latest effort is a brazen attempt to defy Judge Cooper’s earlier decision removing Trump’s name from the memorial to John F. Kennedy. Represented by her counsel from Democracy Defenders Action and Washington Litigation Group, Rep. Beatty also opposed the government’s continued erection of a tarp over the front of the Center’s facade and the renewed sham vote to shut down the Kennedy Center for two years.
Last Thursday, Trump’s handpicked Board voted to change the front of the building’s facade to read “The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts Restored and Renovated By President Donald J. Trump,” and renamed the physical site “The President Donald J. Trump Plaza.” Additionally, the Board voted to add the term “Trump Kennedy Center” back onto the building—a jaw-dropping flouting of this Court’s prohibition on use of that specific term. The latest vote comes just two months after Judge Cooper ruled that the Board unlawfully added President Trump’s name above John F. Kennedy’s name last December and ordered the removal of Trump’s name.
In today’s filing, for the first time, the government provided details on the tarp—which has hung over the Kennedy Center’s facade since the government removed Trump’s name. Astonishingly, the government also implied to Rep. Beatty’s counsel that it may have damaged the Kennedy Center’s historic marble when it removed Trump’s name.
Rep. Beatty urged the Court to take three immediate steps to protect the public interest and ensure the integrity of ongoing litigation over the future of the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts:
- Set an emergency briefing schedule and rule on the legality of the renaming resolution
- Order Defendants to show cause why the tarp and scaffolding obscuring the Kennedy Center’s name should not be removed within 30 days
- Order the parties to begin discovery into the Board’s sham decision to shut down the Kennedy Center
“The government is going down a very dangerous path, all to reward Donald Trump’s vanity,” said Rep. Beatty. “The federal court was clear: The Kennedy Center is named for John F. Kennedy, and Congress prohibited anyone else from being honored on the building’s facade. But now Donald Trump and his handpicked Board are defying the Court’s decision—to say nothing of the law that Congress passed—and attempting another cheap rebranding of this sacred national memorial. Enough is enough. This has to stop.”
“Donald Trump’s Board of loyalists has once again voted to deface the Kennedy Center to appease the President,” said Amb. Norm Eisen (ret.), Co-Founder and Board Member of Democracy Defenders Action, and Nathaniel Zelinsky, Principal and Managing Counsel of the Washington Litigation Group. “This is the kind of slavish behavior we expect to see in Moscow or Pyongyang, not Washington, D.C. This latest gambit is deeply un-American, and it defies the district court’s crystal clear decision. This is a massive assault on the rule of law.”
Rep. Joyce Beatty is represented by Nathaniel Zelinsky, Kyle Freeny, and Alex Kristofcak of Washington Litigation Group, and Norm Eisen, Steve Jonas, and David Ogden of Democracy Defenders Action.
Read the filing here.
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Democracy Defenders Action brings together a nonpartisan team to work with national, state, and local allies across the country to defend in real time the foundations of our democracy.
The Washington Litigation Group is a nonpartisan team of attorneys dedicated to defending individuals and institutions that have been unlawfully targeted for exercising their legal rights and to fighting against governmental overreach.
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