Democrat congresswoman files civil suit to remove Trump’s name from Kennedy Center

Ohio Democratic Rep. Joyce Beatty, a John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts trustee, has filed a federal civil lawsuit asking the court to remove President Trump’s name.   Beatty filed the suit late last month, CBS News reported Wednesday. The suit asks the court to rule that the center’s board members violated the law in voting to add Trump’s name to the Washington, D.C., venue.
“Declare that the name of Kennedy Center is ‘The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts’ and declare that the vote to change the Kennedy Center’s name is null and void, and without legal effect, according to the 18-page suit. 
The suit also argues that soon after Kennedy was assassinated, Congress designated the yet-to-be-built performing arts center “as the sole national memorial to the late President within the nation’s capital.”
“Because Congress named the center by statute, changing the Kennedy Center’s name requires an act of Congress,” the lawsuit said. “But on Dec. 18 and 19, 2025 – in scenes more reminiscent of authoritarian regimes than the American republic – the sitting President and his handpicked loyalists renamed this storied center after President Trump. This is a flagrant violation of the rule of law, and it flies in the face of our constitutional order.”
Multiple sources told the news outlet that the Trump administration is expected to formally respond to Beatty’s lawsuit by the end of February.
The Kennedy Center board members, who were appointed by Trump last February after he ousted the sitting board members, voted to rename the center as part of Trump’s overhaul of the facility. The board elected Trump as chairman in February, and Richard Grenell was named interim president and executive director.
It is unknown how much the cost has been for the changes to the signage, website and other Kennedy Center monikers.
A Kennedy Center spokeswoman told CBS News when asked about the cost, “President Trump deserves credit for saving America’s cultural center after years of neglect — as the very legislators attacking him now sat idly by while the center fell into disrepair.”
Norm Eisen, an attorney who is among those challenging the name change in the lawsuit, told the news outlet, “The damages have been substantial, and that will be addressed in the case. They include far more, of course, than the high cost of signage and of the other naming changes. The losses to the performing corps, to the audience base, to the bottom line of the Center, to its memorial and other activities and indeed to the arts and arts education themselves have been vast.”
Also, Maryland Democratic Rep. April McClain Delaney last month announced she was introducing a bill to “require the removal of any signage or other identification from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts that differs from the designation ‘John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.”   
McClain Delaney told CBS News, “A president can’t enshrine himself. This is what authoritarian leaders do,” adding that “it’s arrogant and it’s narcissistic.”

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