A federal judge has ordered that President Donald Trump cannot rename the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, nor may he close it for what the Trump administration said were two years of renovations.
“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,” the judge wrote, CNBC reports. “Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it.”
Just weeks after he was sworn into office, Trump removed members of the board of the Kennedy Center and replaced them with allies and administration officials, including Richard Grenell, Pam Bondi, and Susie Wiles. The new board then voted for Trump to become chairman of the Kennedy Center.
In December, after the White House announced that the board of the Kennedy Center — the official, “living memorial” to the late president — had voted to rename the iconic cultural institution the Trump-Kennedy Center, several members of the Kennedy family took the opportunity to denounce the move.
Maria Shriver, the former First Lady of California, wrote: “The Kennedy Center was named after my uncle, President John F Kennedy.”
She called the renaming “beyond comprehension,” “beyond wild,” “downright weird,” and “obsessive in a weird way,” while explaining that the Kennedy Center was named in honor of a man who was interested in the arts, culture, education, language, and history.
“Next thing perhaps he will want to rename JFK Airport, rename the Lincoln Memorial, the Trump Lincoln Memorial,” she said. “The Trump Jefferson Memorial. The Trump Smithsonian. The list goes on.”
May 17 is President John F. Kennedy’s birthday, he was born in 1917.
This article has been updated.
Image via Reuters