The University of Oxford is removing the Sackler name, which has come under public scrutiny in recent years for its links to the opioid crisis, from several spaces and positions. The renowned research university announcement yesterday, Monday, May 15, that he “undertook a review of his relationship with the Sackler family and their trusts” and decided that “the buildings, spaces and staff positions of the University using the Sackler name do not will do more”.
The name will be taken from two galleries in the Ashmolean Museum, the library and three staff job titles, although Oxford will retain the surname on a plaque on the school’s Clarendon arch and on a board of donors to the Ashmolean Museum for this purpose. of the “historical record of donations”. The school also said it would retain all donations received from the family and their trusts “for the intended educational purposes.” (The university says it has not received any new donations from the family or their trusts since 2019, although a recent report from the FinancialTimes claims the school has continued to accept money from the Sacklers for the past two years, based on documents reportedly reviewed by the publication.)
“This is a major victory for victims and students who do not deserve to have the name of the family that sparked America’s overdose crisis displayed in their institutions,” a spokesperson for the advocacy group said. . PAIN (Prescription Addiction Intervention Now) said Hyperallergic.
Founded by artist Nan Goldin, the group has staged protests at museums around the world that have accepted donations from the Sackler family and continues to fight to hold opioid manufacturers accountable. Last month, PAIN Sackler protesters were joined by 100 Harvard students in a “die-in” at the university’s Arthur M. Sackler Museum to demand that the institution remove Sackler’s name.
“Harvard remains one of the last resisters, and this is a great disgrace to their legacy, to their students and staff, and to the victims of the Sackler families’ crimes,” PAIN continued.
Oxford now joins a long list of institutions – including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Louvre Museum, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museumthe Tate Museums, the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the American Museum of Natural History – all of which removed the Sackler name. Members of the Sackler family own the now-bankrupt maker of OxyContin, Purdue Pharma, which played a pivotal role in the opioid epidemic by downplaying the addictive qualities of the prescription painkiller that made more than half a million deaths since its market introduction in the mid-1990s.
Oxford has not yet responded. Hyperallergicimmediate requests for comments.
