A Democratic lawmaker is urging a federal judge to block the Kennedy Center from incorporating President Trump’s name on its branding.
Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-OH), an ex officio member of the center’s board of trustees, argued in a motion that Congress established the Kennedy Center’s name.
“Congress named the Kennedy Center for John F. Kennedy—and placed firm limits on any other individuals for which it may be named,” Beatty’s lawyers argue. According to the code establishing the Kennedy Center, the site is to be “designated as the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts” and the board’s responsibility is to “maintain and administer the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts” as a “living memorial to “John Fitzgerald Kennedy.”
“There is no clearer or more significant breach of fiduciary duty than the Board flouting the central purpose of the institution it is charged with protecting and which Congress enshrined into law: to maintain the Center as a memorial to John F. Kennedy — and to no one else,” the filing says. It adds that “Defendants have not articulated a coherent defense of their nakedly unlawful actions.”
The Board of Trustees of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts voted unanimously to rename the center in December.
Roma Daravi, the Kennedy Center’s vice president of public relations, confirmed the development. “The Kennedy Center Board of Trustees voted unanimously today to name the institution The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts,” she said. “The unanimous vote recognizes that the current Chairman saved the institution from financial ruin and physical destruction. The new Trump Kennedy Center reflects the unequivocal bipartisan support for America’s cultural center for generations to come.”
