Yale University Cuts Ties With the Sacklers Over Opioid Disaster

Yale is severing ties with the Sackler family, the founders of pharmaceutical giant Purdue Pharma, which has donated millions of dollars to the university.

“In 2021, the University made a decision to pursue a separation from the Sackler name and has been actively working on specific plans consistent with that decision which we expect to announce soon,” Yale spokesperson Karen Peart told the Yale Daily News.

Purdue Pharma has also endowed two professorships and a program in the sciences at Yale.

The prestigious school joins a raft of other institutions that have cut ties with the Sackler family due to Purdue Pharma’s role in the opioid epidemic, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Guggenheim, Columbia University and the Tate Group.

The Sackler family, whose wealth totals around $11 billion, are the producers of the opioid OxyContin, which has contributed to the deaths of more than 1 million Americans in the past two decades, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In 2019, Yale said it would stop accepting donations from the Sackler family but did not remove the family’s name from its campus.

Last week, Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family agree to pay $6 billion to victims and communities affected by the opioid crisis, which would end all current and future civil claims against them. However, the liability protection does not include protection from criminal proceedings.

The deal will also require the Sackler family to issue a formal apology and will allow institutions, such as Yale, to remove the family’s name from buildings and scholarships.

The Daily Beast has reached out to Yale for comment.