Oxford University ended its relationship with the Sackler family on Monday after a Financial Times investigation into its ongoing relationship with the Sackler family led academics and students to call for sweeping reforms.
this Decide Severing social ties and removing Sackler’s name from buildings, spaces and staff positions comes at the end of a review initiated by the new vice chancellor, Irene Tracey, professor of anesthesia neuroscience.
Most other prominent arts and academic institutions severed ties with the billionaire owner of Purdue Pharmaceuticals between 2019 and 2022 following public outcry over their role in the deadly U.S. opioid crisis, The crisis is estimated to have claimed more than half a million lives.
For years, Purdue aggressively marketed its prescription painkiller OxyContin, downplaying its addictive properties while netting tens of billions of dollars.
Institutions such as the Louvre Museum in Paris and the National Portrait Gallery in London rejected donations or removed Sackler’s name from buildings in 2019. London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, British Museum, National Gallery and Tate Gallery Group do so in 2022.
Oxford came under pressure to buck the trend when the Financial Times revealed that Oxford had continued to court Sackler over the past two years, extending invitations to exclusive events and accepting donations, even as members of the family that owns Purdue Pharma negotiated dozens of deals. billion-dollar bankruptcy settlement over their role in the pandemic.
When asked by the Financial Times whether social ties had been included in the review’s findings, the university, without elaborating in its announcement on Monday, confirmed that “the Sackler family has agreed to renounce their membership in the Chancellor’s Donor Court, Therefore there will be no further invitations to events”.
An FT investigation revealed last April that Teresa Sackler, the third wife of the late former Purdue University chief executive and co-owner Mortimer Sackler Theresa Sackler) came to private viewings of the annual Oxford and Cambridge rowing races as an “external participant”. She was invited to be a member of the “Court of Principal Donors”, a prestigious group with access to to the Chancellor, Vice-Chancellor and other senior university figures.
Later that same year, Sackler was also invited to the annual Ashmolean Gala in September. Sackler was a member of Purdue’s board of trustees from 1993 to 2018, according to the lawsuit she identified.
Oxford University said Sackler’s name would be removed from landmarks such as the Ashmolean Museum and the Bodleian Library, as well as from several Ashmolean research positions, which the Financial Times investigation showed were recently closed. Previously committed funding secured in June 2021.
“It was a very clear statement from the university, and I think they made the right decision,” said Dorothy Bishop, professor emeritus of developmental neuropsychology and honorary fellow at St. John’s.
The university said donations already received from the Sackler family and its trust fund will be used “for intended educational purposes,” but no new donations have been received since 2019.
The university said the outcome had the “full support” of the Sackler family. It added that Sackler’s name would remain on the donation boards at Clarendon Arch and Ashmolean “for the historical record of giving to the University”.
“The university has heeded the necessary moral concerns about the source of this money — the deaths of half a million people — and has finally responded to criticism from academics and the local community,” said Olivia Durand, author of is director of Uncomfortable Oxford, an organization responsible for tours highlighting the city’s legacy of imperialism, inequality and discrimination.