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The Trump administration said in a court filing late Friday that it is still considering a “partial closure” at the Kennedy Center, despite a previous ruling requiring that the iconic performing arts center remains open.
Last month, U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper ruled that the institution’s board improperly voted to shut down the center starting on July 5 for renovations. Cooper also reversed the board’s decision to add President Trump’s name to the center.
The judge had asked the administration to share more details by a Friday deadline about these planned renovations and scheduled programming at the center for after the previously planned closure date.
Matt Floca, the center’s executive director, said in the Friday filing that management plans to present the board with three options: “complete closure” with “no ongoing programming,” “partial closure” with “limited programming” or “phased closures” and a “full slate of programming.”
“The Center continues to prepare for additional capital repair and construction activities,” government attorneys wrote in the filing, noting that Cooper’s order did not block the center from closing for renovations altogether nor did it require them to reschedule cancelled programming.
The administration said it expects these renovations to occur between July and December, pending approval from the performing arts center’s board.
Additionally, the government lawyers noted the administration’s compliance with Cooper’s order to remove the president’s name from the center’s digital and physical signage.
“Defendants will expeditiously address any remaining uses of the President’s name if and when they become aware of their existence,” the administration wrote in the filing.
Attorneys for Kennedy Center ex officio board member Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio), who brought the original lawsuit against the administration, responded on Friday evening.
Her lawyers said the administration’s filing “confirms that they plan to turn the Kennedy Center into a lifeless husk.”
“As things stand now, absent action on Defendants’ part, the Kennedy Center will have no meaningful operations after July 5, 2026,” her attorneys wrote. “Defendants are thus following through with, and continuing to implement, their existing plans to close the Center, contrary to the Court’s preliminary injunction order.”
Beatty’s lawyers also requested that the administration explain why scaffolding was constructed around the Kennedy Center’s facade, obstructing a view of the letter-removal process.
“Defendants appear to be actively undermining the restoration of the Kennedy Center’s name, in a petty act of defiance,” Beatty wrote in the filing. “In addition to raising concerns about compliance, willfully sabotaging Kennedy Center’s iconic facade to assuage Defendants’ vanity or massage broken egos is a clear breach of fiduciary duty.”
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