Kennedy Center board votes to rename the building 'The Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.'

The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, in Washington, D.C., is the federally-funded national cultural center established by an act of Congress in 1958 and named, after his assassination in 1963, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in 1964. The 1964 statute, on the books, establishes the building as a memorial to President Kennedy. That word, memorial, is in the law.

The Kennedy Center’s board of trustees, on Thursday, in a vote the board chair characterized as unanimous and which one ex-officio member, an Ohio congresswoman, characterized as not unanimous because she voted against it, renamed the institution. The new name, on the Thursday signage, is The Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts. The Trump name, on the building exterior, was installed Friday morning, less than twenty-four hours after the vote.

Hon. I want to walk through three things.

One. The man on the building. Renaming a memorial to a man who has been dead for sixty-two years is, as a matter of plain English, also a memorial alteration. The 1964 statute, the legal academics on the morning shows pointed out, requires Congress to amend it before the memorial designation can be modified. The board’s view, in a letter the chair released Thursday afternoon, was that the naming authority belongs to the board. The 1964 statute, in the relevant section, says naming and dedication. The two words sit next to each other.

Two. The man on the new front of the building. This is, on every legal scholar’s count, the first time in U.S. history that a national institution is named, in the primary position on the marquee, after a sitting president. The federal building inventory, as a rule, names buildings after presidents who are dead. The reason, in the U.S. tradition, is that it is premature to memorialize a man who is still in office. The premature part is what is on the marquee now.

Three. The performers. By Friday afternoon, fourteen performers had cancelled scheduled appearances at the Center. The list included, by name, an opera company, a chamber ensemble, a Broadway-revue tour, a children’s-theater touring production from Chicago, and George Clooney, who had been scheduled to host a benefit. Mr. Clooney’s statement, on the record, was brief.

I have been a waitress for thirty years. The diner I work at is named for the man who built it in 1957. He died in 2003. In 2024, when our owner sold the building, the buyer floated putting his name on the diner. The customers, as a body, got loud. The buyer, as a body, got smaller. The sign still says the original name. The buyer’s name is on the parking sign. That is the order of operations the country, until Thursday, understood.

That ought to concern you.