What started as a controversial rebrand is now a full-blown legal fight over whether Donald Trump can quite literally stamp his name over a national monument—and get away with it.
Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio) is asking a federal judge to shut it down.
In a forceful court filing this week, Beatty argued that Trump and his handpicked allies on the Kennedy Center’s board have crossed a legal line by attaching his name to the iconic performing arts institution—something she says flatly violates the law that created it.
“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.
This isn’t just about signage. Beatty originally sued back in December after the board voted to rebrand the center to include Trump’s name and updated the building accordingly. Her lawsuit accuses the group of trying to “rename, shutter and gut” the institution.
Now she’s pushing for partial summary judgment, essentially asking the court to step in and stop what her legal team calls an unlawful takeover.
Her attorneys, Norm Eisen and Nathaniel Zelinsky, didn’t hold back. They said Trump and the board have failed to offer any legitimate legal justification for their actions, calling the move “nakedly unlawful” and noting the absence of a “coherent defense.”
At the center of the dispute is the law that established the Kennedy Center. It states the building must be “designated as the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.” Beatty’s team argues that language isn’t vague—it’s binding.
They also point to additional restrictions in the law that prohibit trustees from installing new memorials or plaques in public areas, except in narrowly defined cases. According to the filing, none of those exceptions come close to allowing Trump’s name to be added to the façade—let alone placed above Kennedy’s.
“None of these narrow exceptions permit the trustees to add President Trump’s name to the Center’s façade — above President Kennedy’s name — and to rebrand the Center as the ‘Trump Kennedy Center,’” the lawyers wrote.
And the naming fight is only part of the broader clash. Beatty is also trying to block a separate plan backed by Trump’s board to shut down the Kennedy Center for two years for a “complete rebuild.” A judge recently allowed her to attend the meeting where that plan moved forward—but stopped short of giving her a vote.
Now the question is whether the courts will treat this as an illegal attempt to hijack a presidential memorial.
