A Democratic lawmaker has asked a federal judge to stop the Kennedy Center from sticking President Trump’s name on its building and other branding.
Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio), an ex officio member of the performing arts center’s board of trustees, argued in a motion filed Wednesday that Congress plainly established former President Kennedy as the center’s eponym.
“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,” her lawyers wrote in a motion for partial summary judgment.
Beatty sued Trump and other board members in December over efforts to “rename, shutter and gut” the Kennedy Center. Her lawsuit came days after the board, hand-picked by Trump, voted to change the institution’s name to include Trump’s, and the building’s signage was updated.