Petition calling on Kennedy Center donors to suspend funding nears 100,000 signatures

Sponsors of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., are facing a petition calling to suspend funding amid Donald Trump's takeover.

The petition comes in the wake of Trump adding his name to the center and the subsequent wave of artists canceling their shows in protest. Launched by Qommittee — a national network of drag artists and allies led by survivors of hate crimes such as the Pulse and Club Q mass shootings, a firebombing at an Ohio church, and an attack on a power grid in North Carolina — it calls on donors to suspend funding to the center until artistic independence is restored and to redirect support to banned or censored artists.

Related: Canceled shows and record lows: How Trump is killing the Kennedy Center

“While Trump won't back down, the donors who contribute nearly $100 million annually to the Kennedy Center can afford to take a stand,” the petition reads. “Money talks. When donors fund censorship, they don't just harm one institution — they tell marginalized communities their stories don't deserve to be told.”

Trump announced in February his plans to wipe out the board of trustees at the Kennedy Center and replace the chairman with himself. He said he was specifically motivated to overhaul the center so he could end the family-friendly drag shows it occasionally hosted.

As drag artists staged protests, ticket sales at the Center plummeted. Over 43 percent of seats went unsold between September 3 and October 19, according to a report from The Washington Post, compared to only 7 percent during the same period in 2024. The 48th Kennedy Center Honors telecast hosted by Trump also drew the smallest audience ever for the event, a report from Programming Insider found, receiving just 2.65 million viewers — a 35 percent decline from the 4.1 million viewers in 2024.

The White House then claimed in December that the Kennedy Center's board voted unanimously to change its name to the "Trump-Kennedy Center," something that only Congress has the authority to do. U.S. Rep. Joyce Beatty, a Democrat from Ohio, said afterwards that the change was forced through as she was prevented from speaking. In protest, several artists canceled their upcoming performances.

Related: Drag artists who crashed Donald Trump's first Kennedy Center show want him to know: 'You can’t erase us'

The petition calls on those who donate to the Center to instead invest in "infrastructure that supports artistic freedom." Companies featured among the center's major donors, who have made gifts of $1 million or more annually, include Boeing, Paramount, and Wells Fargo. Companies that have contributed $500,000 or more annually include Capital One, Coca-Cola, Delta Airlines, Meta, and United Airlines.

"The Trump-Kennedy Center is now America's cathedral to censorship,” Blaq Dinamyte, drag king and president of Qommittee, said in a statement. “The first official act was to ban the voices and art of LGBTQ+ people and people of color at the Kennedy Center, and now they've officially changed the name by doing what? Literally muting Congresswoman Beatty and not counting her vote in opposition. This is not about one building or one institution — this is about who gets to exist in American culture."