TRUE

U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, ruled that the Kennedy Center cannot be renamed without an act of Congress 1 4 5. Cooper's 94-page opinion found that the center's Board of Trustees overstepped its statutory bounds by unilaterally adding Donald Trump's name to the building 5 8. The ruling followed a legal challenge involving the 1964 federal law that established the venue as a memorial to John F. Kennedy 4 9. By June 13, 2026, the venue's executive director confirmed that the institution had complied with the order to strip Trump’s name from the facade and its website 3 7 11. A panel of appellate judges, which included two Obama appointees and one Trump appointee, subsequently rejected a Justice Department request to stay Cooper's ruling 12.