Oxford University is removing the Sackler name from its buildings because of family members’ links to America’s opioid crisis. The university had a Sackler Library, two Sackler galleries, a Sackler keeper of antiquities and a Sackler associate professorship of sedimentary geology, recognising more than £11 million in donations from the family and its associated trusts since the 1990s. But no more. The university is late to this party – other prominent art and cultural institutions cut ties from 2019 after a public outcry over the family’s ownership of the now-bankrupt Purdue Pharma, which aggressively marketed the addictive prescription painkiller Oxycontin. Oxford said the decision was taken with the “full support” of the Sackler family, whose name would be kept on a donor board “for the purposes of historical recording of donations to the university”. Some estimates say the opioid crisis has wiped nearly a year from US male life expectancy, with 187 opioid overdose deaths every day.
