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The University of Oxford announced that it would remove the Sackler name from several campus buildings and staff positions, joining a long list of institutions that have distanced themselves from the once-respected philanthropic family now associated with the opioid epidemic, The New York Times reported Tuesday.
Oxford “has decided that the university buildings, spaces and staff positions using the Sackler name will no longer do so,” the institution said in a statement.
The British university had a Sackler Library, two Sackler galleries, a Sackler officer and a Sackler keeper of antiquities, according to the Times.
“But after the family’s name—an acknowledgment to the dynasty’s generous donations—came under scrutiny because of some of its members’ ties to the opioid crisis in the United States, Oxford announced on Monday that it would drop mention of it from several of its buildings and staff positions,” the Times stated.
Oxford said it had received donations from the Sacklers and related trusts of about $12 million to $19 million since 1993, the Times reported. Sackler family members led Purdue Pharma, the now-bankrupt company that made the painkiller OxyContin and fueled an opioid crisis that has killed hundreds of thousands of people in the United States.
