A federal judge on Tuesday rejected a second attempt to add President Trump’s name to the Kennedy Center, saying it is illegal and violates a previous injunction.
U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper had ordered Mr. Trump’s name removed from the front wall of the venue earlier this year.
The center’s board of trustees, stacked with Trump loyalists, sought a workaround. Rather than renaming the facility itself as the Trump-Kennedy Center, it proposed adding Mr. Trump’s name to the plaza and post inscriptions crediting him with renovating and restoring the building.
It also pondered inscribing “endowed by the Trump Kennedy Center fund” on the building’s facade.
Judge Cooper’s new ruling rejects that approach, saying he’d forbidden any attempt to add a name to the building or grounds.
“Simply put, Defendants cannot install memorials for President Trump or anyone or anything else at the Kennedy Center without Congress’s blessing,” wrote Judge Cooper, an Obama appointee.
His order blocks the center from adding Mr. Trump’s name to the plaza or crediting him with the renovation. Judge Cooper said the endowment inscription also seems to violate his previous orders, but since the center isn’t likely to make that change any time soon, that legal battle can be postponed.
The Kennedy Center’s board has argued that the facility is crumbling and only Mr. Trump’s assistance can prevent its financial and physical collapse.
But the board said in a proposed resolution, Mr. Trump won’t help unless he gets appropriate recognition — chiefly that his name gets slapped on the iconic performing arts center.
“The board understands that without such appropriate recognition it is unlikely that President Trump will provide the fundamental oversight of the renovation of the main building and lead the fiscal rescue of the center,” the proposed resolution read.
Mr. Trump has proposed shuttering the facility for two years to allow for renovations.
The board previously adopted that plan, but it was to shut down in July. Judge Cooper blocked it, ruling that the board didn’t follow its own rules and procedures in reaching the decision.
The board then did additional work to justify the full closure, saying it could continue some of its offerings off-site or at a smaller theater on the center’s grounds.
The board was holding meeting on the closure proposal Tuesday afternoon.
Just before that, Judge Cooper held a hearing in his courtroom, then issued his decision on the naming. He did not rule in the closure question, instead urging both sides to talk it out.
Rep. Joyce Beatty, an Ohio Democrat who is an ex-officio member of the Kennedy Center’s board, led the legal challenge to Mr. Trump.
She hailed Judge Cooper’s second spanking of the board.
“President Trump is holding the Kennedy Center hostage unless he can put his name on this sacred memorial,” she said in a statement. “This unlawfulness is as breathtaking as it is wrong, and it needs to stop.”
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