A US judge has ordered President Donald Trump’s name removed from Washington’s Kennedy Center, ruling on Friday that only Congress can rename the federally chartered venue.
U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper issued the decision on May 29, also blocking the centre’s planned temporary closure during upcoming renovations.
The order gives the institution 14 days to strip Trump’s name from the building’s facade, signage, digital displays and official materials. The venue will return to its original title, the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, the name it carried when it opened in 1971.
Cooper based the ruling on the centre’s founding statute, which he said reserves the naming power for lawmakers. “Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it,” he wrote in an opinion running to 94 pages.
The dispute followed Trump’s move into the institution’s leadership in 2025. He replaced several trustees in February, appointed himself to the board, won a vote to become chairman, and backed renaming the venue The Donald J Trump and John F Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.
A spokesperson for the centre, Roma Daravi, said it would appeal and would also review the ruling on the renovation closure. She maintained that the building still needs urgent restoration and said the $257 million secured by Trump and approved by Congress was already in place for the work.
Board member Joyce Beatty, who brought part of the legal challenge, said the ruling confirmed that the renaming and closure had no basis in law. She argued that the Kennedy Center belongs to the American people rather than to Trump.
The centre was established in memory of President John F. Kennedy after his assassination in 1963 and remains one of the United States’ leading cultural institutions.
