Congresswoman sues over Trump’s Kennedy Center rebrand

WASHINGTON (CN) — An Ohio Democrat is calling for a federal court to reverse the Kennedy Center’s controversial decision to add President Donald Trump’s name to the Washington performance hall that also serves as a memorial to the assassinated 35th president.

In a lawsuit filed Monday, U.S. Representative Joyce Beatty argued that the rebrand violated federal law — and an act of Congress — designating the cultural center as a memorial solely to honor President John F. Kennedy.

“Congress has not changed the Kennedy Center’s name,” Beatty wrote in the suit. “Instead, defendants are willfully flouting the law to satisfy defendant Trump’s vanity.”

During his second term, Trump has taken particular interest in the Kennedy Center, the home of the Washington National Opera and the National Symphony Orchestra. The president in February installed himself as chairman of the center’s board of trustees, a group which also includes Attorney General Pam Bondi, Second Lady Usha Vance and Fox News host Laura Ingraham.

And last week, the board voted to rename the Kennedy Center, adding Trump’s name ahead of that of the late 35th president. The building’s front signage was quickly altered to reflect the change.

Beatty, who serves on the Kennedy Center board in an ex-officio capacity — meaning her presence is mandated by law — said in her lawsuit that last Thursday’s meeting during which the name change was decided was a “sham,” and that the move had been orchestrated by Trump and his allies “as a pretext for a predetermined result.”

The board members, the Ohio Democrat said, had provided no advance notice that they would consider a name change. Beatty, who was attending the meeting virtually, claimed that she attempted to protest the rebrand but was muted by the online conference software.

“Plaintiff received written notice that she would not be unmuted, and therefore she could not participate in the meeting,” Beatty wrote. “At the end of the meeting, members of the board falsely declared that the vote had been unanimous. It is clear that nothing could or would change defendants’ minds.”

The apparent move to block her participation, Beatty told the court, violated her rights as a Kennedy Center trustee and federal statute which designated her as a “full voting member” of the board.

And Beatty said that the trustees’ overarching move to rename the Kennedy Center after Trump violated a 1964 law which renamed the national cultural center in Washington after the assassinated former president. The letter of the statute, under the 1958 National Cultural Center Act, holds that the center’s trustees maintain the building as a “living memorial to John Fitzgerald Kennedy.”

“Congress has named the Kennedy Center by statute, and only Congress may change the Kennedy Center’s name,” wrote the Ohio Democrat, who added that lawmakers had “expressly prohibited” the board from adding other plaques to the center with few exceptions.

Further, Beatty claimed that the trustees violated their “fundamental obligations” under the law, such as their responsibility to administer the Kennedy Center’s trust and “the duty of loyalty.” The lawmaker also accused Kennedy Center president Richard Grenell of running afoul of his duties as an employee. She also argued that the trustee had wasted the center’s resources to “unlawfully deface” the building and by “diluting” the Kennedy Center’s brand.

Beatty urged the court to force the Kennedy Center board to remove signage and other branding materials adding Trump’s name to the building, its website and elsewhere.

The president’s allies on the center’s board of trustees have forcefully rejected claims that the rebrand breaks federal law. Grenell, in a series of social media posts last week, argued that the decision to tack Trump’s name onto the Kennedy Center does not impact the building’s status as a memorial to Kennedy.

“The new name is the Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts,” the Kennedy Center president wrote in one post. “No change to the Congress mandated Memorial to Kennedy.”

Grenell has also contested Beatty’s claim that she should have been given full voting rights as an ex-officio member of the Kennedy Center’s board, telling her directly that “no ex-officios ever get to vote.” He has claimed that federal law draws a distinction between “ex officio non-voting members and general trustee members,” but the section of U.S. Code that lays out the composition of the Kennedy Center board does not contain such language.

It’s yet unclear whether the move to rename the Kennedy Center after Trump violated the law. But as the court weighs Beatty’s lawsuit, the president is hoping to cement the center’s new branding in the public consciousness.

In a post on Truth Social Tuesday morning, Trump advertised the “Trump Kennedy Center Honors” program, which took place earlier this month and is set to broadcast Tuesday evening. The president himself hosted the event, which honored rock band Kiss, country artist George Strait and actor Sylvester Stallone.

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