An appeals court is keeping intact a federal judge’s ruling requiring the Kennedy Center to remove President Donald Trump’s name from its building by the end of Friday. Workmen were completing erecting scaffolding at the center Friday night to do just that.
The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a last-minute effort by the center to freeze the judge’s ruling so that it wouldn’t need to comply while more court proceedings play out.
The appeals court did not explain its reasoning for its decision in a brief, unsigned ruling. The panel included Judge Gregory Katsas, a Trump appointee; Patricia Millett, an appointee of former President Barack Obama; and Robert Wilkins, also an Obama appointee.
The judges asked for more written legal arguments to be submitted later this month over the center’s bid to pause the lower-court’s ruling that said it must remove Trump’s name from its building, website, promotional materials and other areas. But even as the legal wrangling plays out in coming weeks, the center must, for now, take steps to completely comply with the judge’s directive.
The center has the option of asking the Supreme Court to intervene on its behalf.
Under the ruling issued by U.S. District Judge Casey Cooper last month, the performing arts venue faced an 11:59 p.m. deadline on Friday to undo its rebranding of the center to honor Trump alongside the nation’s 35th president. The center had taken steps in recent days to reverse the change in some places but kept letters spelling “The Donald J. Trump and” on the front of its building as it sought to stave off compliance with Cooper’s ruling.
In their 22-page filing to the D.C. Circuit, DOJ lawyers repeated many of the arguments they pushed before Cooper, including that restoring the original name of the center now may cause confusion to the public should they ultimately prevail in the legal challenge to the renaming.
But they also raised the prospect that compliance with the judge’s ruling could jeopardize private donations to the center. The department pointed to bylaws that say money must be returned to donors if Trump’s name is removed from the center’s “filings, marketing, branding, façade, or any other affiliated location.”
“All of this money, hundreds of millions of dollars, will have to be immediately returned, or not received by the Center,” the department told the appeals court.
As the legal dispute unfolded Friday afternoon, crews outside the Kennedy Center began assembling scaffolding underneath the exterior signage.
By the afternoon, the scaffolding partially assembled, they paused the work at the same time that severe thunderstorms rolled into the area and the freeze request was filed before the appeals court. A small crowd of protesters has observed the scene throughout, shouting chants of “Take it down,” and at one point calling the workers “heroes.”
Rep. Joyce Beatty, the Ohio Democrat who has led the legal challenge, stopped by to survey the scene and pose for a photo underneath the scaffolding. “We know we’re on the right side of justice and the law,” Beatty said to applause from protesters. “No matter what happens, we’re going to continue to fight for the Kennedy family.”
“Of course they’re going to fight us. Every bit of the way, there’s going to be a legal fight,” she added.
