The Board of Trustees for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts has voted to rename the historic institution the “Trump-Kennedy Center,” according to White House officials.

The decision was announced Thursday by White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt on social media. Ms. Leavitt said that the board, overhauled earlier this year to include supporters of President Trump, made the change to recognize the president’s involvement in the center’s management over the last year.

“I have just been informed that the highly respected Board of the Kennedy Center, some of the most successful people from all parts of the world, have just voted unanimously to rename the Kennedy Center to the Trump-Kennedy Center, because of the unbelievable work President Trump has done over the last year in saving the building,” Ms. Leavitt said in a post on X.

Ms. Leavitt emphasized that the renaming was a tribute to the administration’s efforts regarding the facility’s physical state and financial health.

“Not only from the standpoint of its reconstruction, but also financially, and its reputation. Congratulations to President Donald J. Trump, and likewise, congratulations to President Kennedy, because this will be a truly great team long into the future! The building will no doubt attain new levels of success and grandeur,” the president’s spokesman said.

In an unusual move, Mr. Trump in February ousted Kennedy Center President Deborah Rutter, as well as board chairman and major donor David Rubenstein and board members appointed by President Biden. After he appointed new members, the board voted Mr. Trump in as the new chairman.

According to reports, the vote took place during a board meeting on Thursday into which Mr. Trump phoned. While the vote was described as unanimous, a Democratic congresswoman, Joyce Beatty, who serves as an ex-officio member of the board, wrote in a post on X that she attempted to object to the proceedings but was muted before the meeting adjourned.

“Participants were not allowed to voice their concerns,” she said. “Clearly, the Congress has a say in this. This center, the Kennedy Center, was created by the Congress. I think it’s important for us to know that this is just another attempt to evade the law and not let the people have a say.” 

But Richard Grenell, who Mr. Trump appointed as interim president of the Kennedy Center, said the congresswoman was not prevented from voting. “You are a non-voting ex-officio member,” he said in an X post aimed at Ms. Beatty. “All ex-officio Members never get to vote.”

Still, some critics of the move say Congress does in fact have a role in the naming of the arts center. “The building is statutorily named the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Congress did not give the board the authority to change the name,” Punchbowl News founder Jake Sherman wrote on X.

“The Kennedy Center is a living memorial to a fallen president and named for President Kennedy by federal law,” Joe Kennedy III, a former congressman from Massachusetts and grandson of Robert F. Kennedy, wrote on X. “It can no sooner be renamed than can someone rename the Lincoln Memorial, no matter what anyone says.”

One federal statute on the arts center says that “the Board shall assure that after December 2, 1983, no additional memorials or plaques in the nature of memorials shall be designated or installed in the public areas of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.”

Earlier this year, after House Republicans moved to change the name of the Kennedy Center’s Opera House to the “First Lady Melania Trump Opera House,” David Super, a Georgetown law professor, told The Washington Post such a move would require approval from Congress.  

“That statute is pretty unequivocal, and I can’t really find any loopholes in it that would allow this to happen. So I assume that’s why they’re pushing legislation rather than sending letters to the board or whatever,” he said, adding that renaming the arts center “would need 60 votes in the U.S. Senate.”