WASHINGTON – The board of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts voted to add Donald Trump's namebelow the main sign on the iconic institution's building, a move that tests a federal judge's order to remove the president's name from the center's title and signage.
A source with knowledge of the board's Aug. 13 vote, made during a closed-door meeting on Zoom, confirmed the action to USA TODAY after the New York Times first reported the decision.
The board, composed mostly of hand-picked members selected by Trump, approved a resolution that seeks to add the inscription “Restored and Renovated by President Donald J. Trump" underneath the Kennedy Center's facade sign, the source said.
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At the same meeting, the board voted to partially close the Kennedy Center to undertake renovations, a project Trump has previously said would take two years. The plan is to close the Kennedy's Center main building, while keeping open a newer, significantly smaller theater wing called the REACH.
Democratic Rep. Joyce Beatty of Ohio, who earlier this year successfully sued to remove Trump's name from the center's signage, criticized the moves in a statement.
“This morning’s decision to close the Center and the surprise agenda item to put Donald Trump’s name back on the building was more of the same,” said Beatty, an ex officio member of the Kennedy Center's board. “This latest development is a transparent effort to circumvent the Court’s ruling, and flies in the face of the statutes that Congress passed. I will continue to fight for this treasured national monument.”
Trump's name was added to the Kennedy Center building in December 2025 after the center's board renamed the institution the "Trump-Kennedy Center" following the president's takeover of the facility. But a federal judge in May ‒ ruling in Beatty's case ‒ ordered the removal of the president's name from the center's title, signage and branding.
In his opinion, U.S. District Court Judge Christopher Cooper said the board violated the 1964 federal law that created the center in honor of President John F. Kennedy, arguing the statute makes clear "the Kennedy Center must be named for, and is meant to honor, President Kennedy alone." Congressional approval would be required to change the name from the Kennedy Center, the judge said.
Blowing past a court deadline, the Kennedy Center on June 13 finally complied with the judge's directive to remove Trump's name from the center's sign. But the center left up a massive tarp that prevents the public from seeing the sign without Trump's name.
In his ruling, Cooper also overturned Trump's planned two-year closure of the center that was set to begin in July to accommodate massive renovations to the building. The judge argued the closure, which the board first approved in March, was made hastily at the direction of Matt Floca, the center's executive director, and lacked serious consideration by the board.
The Kennedy Center's legal counsel has argued the judge did not rule against the concept of temporarily closing the center; rather, that the board's vote was "inappropriate and that any subsequent vote must take more information into account."
Reach Joey Garrison on X @joeygarrison.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Kennedy Center board votes to add Trump's name below building's sign
