University of Oxford drops Sackler name from buildings

General view of the University of Oxford

The University of Oxford is to remove the Sackler name from its buildings over the family's association with the opioid crisis in the US.

The Sackler Library and galleries and staff posts at the Ashmolean Museum, are being renamed following a review into the ties.

Other institutions in the UK and across the world have taken similar action.

The family has links to Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin painkiller that has been hit with lawsuits in the US.

• Sacklers to pay $6bn for role in US opioid crisis

• The UK universities benefitting from opioid money

• The US opioid crisis in numbers

A statement on the University of Oxford's website said the outcome of the review "had the full support of the Sackler family and were approved by the University Council" on Monday.

The Sackler Library has been renamed the Bodleian Art, Archaeology and Ancient World Library.

The university said donations received from the Sackler family and their trusts will be "retained by the university for their intended educational purposes". It said no new donations have been received from the family or their trusts since January 2019.

However, the Sackler name will still be retained on the Clarendon Arch and on the Ashmolean Museum's donor board for "the purposes of historical recording" of donations.

The US billionaire family was known for many years for making huge charitable donations to galleries and museums around the world.

The University of Oxford faced pressure in recent years to remove the Sackler name from its sites.

The National Portrait Gallery, Tate and the Roundhouse are among the other UK institutions to have cut ties with the Sacklers in recent years,

In March 2022, the British Museum also announced it would remove the Sackler name from "galleries, rooms and endowments they supported".

The Louvre museum in Paris and New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. have also distanced themselves from Sackler donations.