The Kennedy Center began removing President Donald Trump’s name from its website on Monday, June 8, acting ahead of a deadline set by its general counsel to comply with a May ruling by U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper, according to a report by The Guardian.
In a memo reported by the Washington Post last week, the center’s general counsel told staff that “to comply with this order, you must immediately change email signatures, letterheads, and other documents to reflect the name such as ‘The John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts,’ or ‘Kennedy Center.’” The memo added that other changes, including to templates, forms, signage, brochures and website pages, “must be completed no later than Friday, June 12, 2026.”
The removal of Trump’s name from the digital property came days before that internal deadline. Cooper’s ruling, issued last month, explicitly barred the venue from using a name that includes the president. “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,” Cooper wrote in his 94-page opinion. “Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it.”
Cooper also temporarily blocked the center from closing this summer for renovations, a decision that responded to the Trump-appointed board’s approval of a $257 million “revitalization project” that would have shuttered the venue for two years.
After Cooper’s ruling, Trump lambasted the judge on social media in a 578-word statement, saying: “I have no interest in continuing what could only be a hopeless journey into ‘NEVER NEVER LAND.’”
As of Monday afternoon, the physical facade of the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. still bore the dual name: “The Donald J Trump and The John F Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts,” according to The Guardian. Interior signage and printed materials remain subject to the June 12 deadline.