The US Institute of Peace is racing to a federal appeals court to block President Donald Trump from permanently engraving his name on its Washington headquarters. They are escalating a legal fight over who controls the identity of an independent agency created by Congress four decades ago.
US Institute of Peace asks court to stop Donald Trump from carving his name on the building
Trump’s name already hangs on the Constitution Avenue building. Workers bolted removable lettering to the facade last December, rebranding the agency as the Donald J. Trump US Institute of Peace after the president moved to dismantle it. That affixture sits beside the institute’s own name, which is engraved into the stone.
Now, according to a court filing, the administration wants something more lasting. Lawyers say officials are “unsatisfied with the relative impermanence of external lettering.” They have even begun preparing to carve the president’s name directly into the building. The filing states that a contractor has been chosen and a formal work request submitted.
Ousted board members filed an emergency motion Thursday in Washington, asking judges to halt the work while their lawsuit proceeds. They directed their request at Kenneth Jackson, the DOGE official now serving as USIP’s acting president, seeking assurances the carving would not move forward.
Their argument rests on the building itself. The headquarters, funded largely through private donations to the tax-exempt nonprofit, is “a work of expressive architecture” meant to symbolize USIP’s independent mission, the motion says. Changing that design to send a different message, the filing warns, “would cause irreparable harm.”
Congress created USIP in 1984 under President Ronald Reagan to research and train peacebuilders promoting democracy abroad. A federal judge ruled in May 2025 that the administration’s effort to dismantle the nonprofit was “unlawful.” But an appeals panel stayed that decision a month later, leaving the agency’s fate unresolved.
The case mirrors Donald Trump’s simultaneous battle over the Kennedy Center, which USIP’s lawyers cite in their filing (via CNN).
