{"id":213645,"date":"2026-06-13T11:10:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-13T11:10:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/court-denies-emergency-appeal-to-retain-trumps-name-on-kennedy-center-the-guardian\/"},"modified":"2026-06-13T11:10:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-13T11:10:10","slug":"court-denies-emergency-appeal-to-retain-trumps-name-on-kennedy-center-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/court-denies-emergency-appeal-to-retain-trumps-name-on-kennedy-center-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"Court denies emergency appeal to retain Trump\u2019s name on Kennedy Center – The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"

Justice department lawyers had appealed to stay a judge\u2019s order to remove Trump\u2019s name from facade
An appeals court in Washington DC<\/a> rejected an emergency appeal seeking to pause the removal of Donald Trump\u2019s name from the facade of the Kennedy Center on Friday.
Justice department lawyers for Donald Trump and his hand-picked Kennedy Center board filed the emergency appeal earlier on Friday, asking the court <\/strong>to stay a judge\u2019s order that his name be removed from the facade of Washington<\/a>\u2019s leading performing arts venue.
The Kennedy Center filed its appeal shortly before the Friday evening deadline set by US district judge Christopher Cooper.
Earlier on Friday, Cooper denied a last-minute bid by the center to keep his name on the building.
As crews returned on Friday evening, onlookers gathered once again at the center to cheer on workers in hard hats and yellow vests gathering at the building, apparently ready to pry the president\u2019s name from its marbled exterior. \u201cTake it down!\u201d they chanted.
Hours earlier, the crew had erected scaffolding around the section of the building where Trump\u2019s name had been affixed. But as a thunderstorm rolled through the nation\u2019s capital, the workers paused their efforts, leaving the lettering in place. It was unclear what prompted the stoppage.
Cooper had ruled last month that the president\u2019s name had been illegally added to the iconic center, and gave the institution officials two weeks to remove his name from its building and branding.
\u201cCongress gave the Kennedy Center its name,\u201d Cooper wrote<\/a> in his 94-page opinion in May, \u201cand only Congress can change it.\u201d
In a 4 June memo, reported <\/a>by the Washington Post, the center\u2019s general counsel referred to Cooper\u2019s order, directing staff to remove all references to a \u201cTrump Kennedy Center\u201d.
\u201cTo comply with this order, you must immediately change email signatures, letterheads, and other documents to reflect the name such as \u2018The John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts,\u2019 or \u2018Kennedy Center.\u2019
\u201cOther changes, such as to templates and forms, signage, brochures and website pages, must be completed no later than Friday, June 12, 2026,\u201d the memo added.
Earlier this week, the Kennedy Center removed Trump\u2019s name from its website, in compliance with the order. According to the Associated Press, an email earlier this week sent to members offering ticket packages for the 28 June Mark Twain Award for American Humor ceremony came from \u201cthe Kennedy Center\u201d \u2013 without including Trump\u2019s name.
Cooper\u2019s order also temporarily blocked the performing arts facility from closing down this summer for renovations. The Kennedy Center\u2019s leadership had previously approved<\/a> a $257m \u201crevitalization project\u201d that would have closed the building for two years.
The decision stemmed from a legal challenge brought by Joyce Beatty, a Democratic representative of Ohio, who was an ex-officio member of the Kennedy Center\u2019s board. Earlier on Friday, she made a filing opposing the request to pause the judge\u2019s ruling. The congresswoman also made an appearance<\/a> outside the venue, where a crowd had gathered on the steamy summer\u2019s afternoon to cheer about 15 workers as they built scaffolding around a section of the marble wall where the president\u2019s name was affixed.
For those working in the local special events industry, the takeover was deeply insulting. Bonnie Berry, a 68-year-old retired higher education and events worker, refused to work on the Kennedy Center Honors last year. Asked how she was feeling now, she said: \u201cOh, lovely, because I can\u2019t say his name. He\u2019s Orange Man 47 to me.\u201d
As the sound of hammering echoed from the scaffold, Berry reflected: <\/em>\u201cIt\u2019s a bittersweet day because I want to make certain it goes down. I haven\u2019t walked on this site for over a year since he put the sign up. I think they should actually auction off T-R-U-M-P and we\u2019ll donate it back to the Kennedy Center to get the opera back and to pay the symphony and the people who got fired. I\u2019d be all in favor of that.\u201d
A Washington bus arrived at the campus and tooted its horn in apparent solidarity. The crowd roared its approval. But just after 4pm, amid thunder and heavy rain, the workers paused their efforts and many spectators took shelter beside an entrance.
In December, the Kennedy Center\u2019s board of trustees, handpicked by Trump, voted unanimously to rename the center, a living memorial dedicated by Congress to the 35th president of the United States, a Democrat, \u201cThe Donald J Trump and the John F Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts\u201d.
During Trump\u2019s first term, he ignored the proudly non-partisan complex and did not attend<\/a> the annual Kennedy Center honors.
But since his return to the White House, the US president has exerted enormous influence over the venue, starting with the termination of its board of trustees \u201cwho do not share our vision for a Golden Age in Arts and Culture\u201d.
He initially installed Ric Grenell<\/a>, a staunch ally with no prior experience in arts administration. Grenell departed earlier this year after overseeing far-reaching changes at the center, which prompted many artists to abandon the venue. He was replaced by Matt Floca, vice-president of operations at the center.
Many residents of the capital have viewed the rebranding of the Kennedy Center, and Trump\u2019s other architectural ambitions, as narcissistic and anti-democratic. Carolyn, a 50-year-old retired government worker who did not wish to give her surname, said: \u201cPutting his name on everything is right out of the dictator playbook.\u201d<\/em>
Carolyn said she had been coming to the centre for a long time and noted it is a memorial to former president John F Kennedy, whose birthday she shares. \u201cOf course it\u2019s just a symbol \u2013 there\u2019s so many other things that the president does that I disagree with \u2013 but I\u2019m happy to be here and have this little splash of hope in the rain.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Justice department lawyers had appealed to stay a judge\u2019s order to remove Trump\u2019s name from facadeAn appeals court in Washington DC rejected an emergency appeal seeking to pause the removal of Donald Trump\u2019s name from the facade of the Kennedy Center on Friday.Justice department lawyers for Donald Trump and his hand-picked Kennedy Center board filed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":213646,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-213645","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-us","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213645"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213645\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/213646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}