Harvard rebuffs protests and won't remove Sackler name from two buildings
Harvard University has decided against removing from campus buildings the name of a family whose company makes the powerful painkiller OxyContin, despite protest from parents whose children fatally overdosed
BOSTON (AP) — Harvard University has decided against removing from campus buildings the name of a family whose company makes the powerful painkiller OxyContin, despite protests from parents whose children fatally overdosed.
The decision last month by the Harvard Corporation to retain Arthur M. Sackler's name on a museum building and second building runs counter to the trend among several institutions around the world that have removed the Sackler name in recent years.
Among the first to do it was Tufts University, which in 2019 announced that it would remove the Sackler name from all programs and facilities on its Boston health sciences campus. The Louvre Museum in Paris and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York have also removed the Sackler name. Signage at London's Tate Modern and Tate Britain as well as New York’s Guggenheim Museum has also been removed.
The move by Harvard, which was confirmed Thursday, was greeted with anger from those who had pushed for the name change as well as groups like the anti-opioid group Prescription Addiction Intervention Now or P.A.I.N. It was started by photographer Nan Goldin, who was addicted to OxyContin from 2014 to 2017, and the group has held scores of museum protests over the Sackler name.
