The Kennedy Center, Minus Trump

A crowd amassed, anticipating a cathartic moment and chanting, “Take it down! Take it down!” Livestreams were up and running. Scaffolding appeared. And then, early this afternoon, the ruling came: A federal judge had denied an emergency motion to let President Trump’s name remain on the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts. It remains unclear whether the 18 letters in question—THE DONALD J. TRUMP AND—will be yanked from the marble facade or simply covered up. But one way or another, they are no longer permitted to grace the building.U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper was responding to the Kennedy Center’s request for a stay pending appeal, which would have allowed Trump’s name to remain on the building while the center fought a legal challenge brought by Representative Joyce Beatty. Later in the day, the board of trustees filed for an emergency stay through the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Even as the center was struggling to contain one legal fire, another erupted: The Washington National Opera filed a lawsuit yesterday against the institution, where it had long been a resident company before severing its relationship with the center in January. Since the two organizations parted ways, the opera claims, the Kennedy Center has refused to return more than $17 million in gifts and donations. The Kennedy Center called the lawsuit meritless and said that it planned to file a countersuit.The center also defended its decision to appeal the legal challenge brought on by Beatty, who argued that the center had violated its authority in renaming the institution. “The Center remains the living memorial to President John F. Kennedy,” a spokesperson told me. “President Trump remains in his role as chairman.” In court, the center had argued that Trump’s addition represented a “secondary” name, to no avail.Cooper’s May 29 ruling—which ordered the removal of Trump’s name from the institution and temporarily halted plans to shut down the center