Harvard rebuffs protests and won’t remove Sackler name from two buildings

Associated Press

BOSTON (AP) — 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. The decision last month by the Harvard Corporation to retain Arthur M. Sackler’s name on a museum building and second building comes as several institutions around the world have removed the name. Among the first to do it was Tufts University, which in 2019 announced that it would removed the Sackler name from all programs and facilities on its Boston health sciences campus. In making its decision, Harvard said Arthur Sackler died nine years before OxyContin was introduced.