Trump’s Anti-DEI Orders Lead to Cancellation of US Marine Band Performance at Kennedy Center

The concert was to feature top young musicians of color from Chicago

A performance by the US Marine Band has been canceled, following President Trump's decision to ban diversity programs in the federal government and the military.

The central aim of the concert was to feature the work of Equity Arc, a Chicago non-profit that provides musical opportunities to students of color. The organization had nominated a number of pre-college students from these backgrounds to perform alongside the US Marine Band.

However, the concert was canceled following the executive order titled "Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing."

Stanford Thompson, the executive director of Equity Arc, said that when he first heard of the cancellation his "first thought was hopelessness and heartbreak."

"We identified this high school age, this pre-college age where a lot of musicians of color drop off," he said. "We came up with the idea of, ‘Can we bring a select group that we would audition through a competitive process to Washington to be able to spend a couple of days with the band?’"

"We are a land that prides itself on being the land of the free, the home of the brave...but we need different perspectives, we need to hear how others think," said Rishab Jain, one of the musicians who had been selected to perform.

"If we are a society that’s oppressing art, we are a society that is afraid of what it might reveal about itself."

Founded in 1798, the Marine Band is the United State's oldest continuously active professional musical organization. Known as “The President’s Own” since the days of Thomas Jefferson, the band has performed for every United States President since John Adams.