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President Donald Trump has been told to remove his name from the Kennedy Center, after he added it in December last year.
Trump added his name onto the cultural institution, which receives federal funding, in Washington DC, making it ‘The Donald Trump and John F Kennedy Memorial Center of Performing Arts’.
A federal judge said this week that the arts centre is officially dedicated to the former president John F Kennedy, and Trump could not keep his name on there. He must remove his name from all signs within two weeks’ time.
In response, Trump said he would seek to work with Congress to end the administration’s oversight role at the institution.
Soon after returning to office last year, Trump drew criticism when he named himself chairman of the Kennedy Center’s board of trustees in February.
The Kennedy Center board later approved a measure in December to incorporate Trump’s name into the institution.
The decision also sparked a series of cancellations by artists and performance groups who objected to the changes, among them a scheduled engagement of the Tony Award-winning musical Hamilton.
NPR reported that on Friday, US District Court Judge Christoper Cooper declared his decision and said Congress is the only body that has the power to change the name.
Cooper said: ‘The Kennedy Center’s organic statute makes crystal clear that the Center is to be named for President Kennedy, and it cannot bear any other formal name or public memorial based on the Board’s unilateral say-so.
‘Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it.’
The court also temporarily halted the administration’s plan to shut down the center for a two-year renovation project that was expected to begin in July.
Writing on his social media platform Truth Social, Trump said: ‘I took great pride in taking over a losing Institution and looked forward to making it into a Great and Prestigious WINNER for Washington, D.C., and indeed, the United States of America.
‘Unfortunately, Judge Cooper and the Radical Left would rather see it DIE than have President Trump transform it into something that everyone could be proud of.
‘Unless I am free to do what I do better than anyone else, bring this Institution back, physically, financially, and artistically, I have no interest in continuing what could only be a hopeless journey into “NEVER NEVER LAND.”
‘There has never been a President of the United States who has been treated so unfairly by the Courts as I but, that’s OK, I will continue to do, what is considered to be, a great job for the wonderful people of our Country.’
Trump and the center’s current voting board members, who were all appointed by the president, had intended to begin the project in early July. Cooper said the renovation proposal is ‘murky’, NPR reported.
He added: ‘None of the board members had sufficient information in advance of the March 16 meeting to make a well-considered decision to close the center.’
The Center has already reduced programming and laid off most of its programming staff.
Ex-officio member of the Kennedy Center Joyce Beatty told NPR: ‘Today’s ruling rightly affirms that this administration’s efforts to rename and close the Center have no basis in law.
‘The Kennedy Center is an institution that belongs to the American people, not to Donald Trump.
‘He has desecrated this sacred memorial for his own vanity. I am proud to have fought for the rule of law and to protect this sacred institution.’
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