General Discussion

U.S. District Court Judge Christopher Cooper said in a 94-page ruling, “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. Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it.”

The president’s allies apparently tried to convince the judge the rebranding was little more than adding an informal nickname, but Cooper, an Obama appointee, didn’t buy it. From the ruling:

The rechristening is not, as Defendants suggest, like calling the “Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection” the “Consumer Financial Protection Bureau,” which is merely a clerical rearrangement. Nor is it akin to calling the Federal National Mortgage Association “Fannie Mae,” which, as even the Defendants admit, is simply a “play on the pronunciation of its acronym.” The administration’s efforts to alter the names of other institutions — calling the Department of Defense the “Department of War,” for example — are beside the point. Most fundamentally, none of these examples implicate a presidential memorial that was legislatively intended to honor a specific public figure. The “Trump Kennedy Center” label adds an entirely new name to the Center’s formal title and relegates President Kennedy’s name to second place. If that is not a renaming, what is?

.....Democratic Rep. Joyce Beatty of Ohio, an ex officio member of the center’s board who was excluded from voting on the name change, quickly filed suit, arguing not only that the process was improper, but that the entire gambit was illegal for the simplest of reasons: A name change required congressional approval, and that had not happened.

Cooper agreed, writing, “The Kennedy Center must be named for, and is meant to honor, President Kennedy alone.”

As part of Friday’s order, which almost certainly will be appealed, ordered the administration to remove all physical signage and all other official documentation within 14 days. He also declared that Beatty must have voting rights as an ex officio member of the board.

If that weren’t enough, Cooper also blocked Trump’s appointees from closing the Kennedy Center’s doors on July 5 for planned restoration efforts in which the president has taken a keen interest.

“Today’s ruling rightly affirms that this administration’s efforts to rename and close the Center have no basis in law,” Beatty said in a statement. “The Kennedy Center is an institution that belongs to the American people, not to Donald Trump. He has desecrated this sacred memorial for his own vanity. I am proud to have fought for the rule of law and to protect this sacred institution.”

The president was far less pleased.