Harvard University has decided that the Sackler family name will not be removed from two of its buildings, despite years of protests from families of opioid overdose victims and anti-opioid groups.
In its recent update to the name change proposal, a Harvard review committee rejected a 23-page proposal submitted in October 2022 by Harvard College Overdose Prevention and Education students to rename the Arthur M Sackler Museum, part of the Harvard Art Museums, and the Arthur M Sackler Building, a campus building.
Sackler’s name is “closely associated with the opioid epidemic,” according to the original proposal reviewed by the Harvard Crimson.
It added: “For many of us – students, staff and faculty – it is unacceptable and deeply offensive to be represented by the Sackler name… It is shameful and disturbing to know that our school, unlike nearly every other cultural and educational institution that at one point bore the Sackler name, has decided to keep the name despite the message of disrespect it sends to our community and the world.”
The Sackler family owned and operated Purdue Pharma, the former manufacturer of OxyContin. The prescription painkiller played a central role in the deadly opioid epidemic in the United States, which has caused more than 500,000 overdose deaths in the past two decades.
Harvard’s review committee explained its decision to retain the Sackler name as follows: “Based on research and review of relevant literature, the committee concluded that while the legacy of Arthur M Sackler is complex and debatable, the petition did not meet the standard for name reduction under Harvard’s procedures for considering name reduction petitions.”
Although he died nine years before the drug was introduced, Arthur Sackler’s name has become synonymous with Purdue Pharma and the deadly opioid crisis.
However, the committee said it was “not persuaded by the arguments in the proposal that naming is appropriate because Arthur Sackler’s name has been tainted by association with other members of the Sackler family, or because Arthur Sackler is partly responsible for the opioid crisis through his aggressive pharmaceutical marketing techniques that others exploited after his death.”
The Harvard Corporation, the university’s highest governing body, has accepted the committee’s recommendation, the Harvard Crimson reported this week.
In response to the university’s decision, the anti-opioid group Prescription Addiction Intervention Now (Pain) said, according to the Associated Press: “Harvard’s continued embrace of the Sackler name is an insult to overdose victims and their families.”
It added: “It is time for Harvard to stand with its students and fulfill its mandate to be a repository of higher historical learning and an institution that embodies the best human values.”
Meanwhile, Mika Simoncelli, a Harvard graduate who organized a student protest over the name last year, told the AP: “Even after receiving a strong, thorough name change proposal, and facing multiple protests from students and community members over the Sackler name, Harvard lacks the moral clarity to implement a change that should have happened years ago.”
Harvard’s decision stands in contrast to several institutions around the world, including Tufts University in Massachusetts, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Guggenheim in New York, the Louvre in Paris, and the Tate Modern and Tate Britain in London, all of which have removed programs or signage bearing Sackler’s name.
Harvard did not immediately respond to the Guardian’s request for comment.
