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SALT LAKE CITY — Protests have taken place globally on the steps of the Met, in the atrium of the Guggenheim, in the pool and plaza of the Louvre, all with one goal: to rid museums and universities of the name of the Sackler family, owners and founders of Purdue Pharma and developers of OxyContin.
After the Louvre protest, the French museum removed the Sackler name from the wing that had held the name since 1997 and taped over any other mention of the Sacklers, though museum officials said it was because there was a 20-year time limit for the names of donors to be up, and not necessarily in response to the protest.
But these big-name museums are far from the only museums that have benefitted from the Sacklers’ donations. Park City's Alf Engen Ski Museum got its start back in July 2002 with seed money from various donors, including the Sacklers.
On the museum’s website, Dr. and Mrs. Richard Sackler are listed as “Silver Donors,” a category denoting a donation between $5,000 and $99,999. Richard Sackler is also listed as an honorary board member for the ski museum’s foundation on the site.
The activist group behind the global protests is Prescription Addiction Intervention Now (PAIN) Sackler, led by American photographer and activist Nan Goldin. Their mission is to “target the Sackler family ... through museums and universities that carry their name.”
“The Sackler family made billions by exploiting our physical and emotional pain, and our cultural institutions are complicit in whitewashing their reputation by accepting the Sackler’s toxic philanthropy,” the group said in a statement on its website.
Although PAIN Sackler did not respond to multiple requests for comment on this specific case, the group's mission statement asks all museums, universities and institutions worldwide to refuse future donations from the family and to take down all signage and ties to the family.
Connie Nelson, award-winning director of the Alf Engen Ski Museum, stated that she hadn’t heard of Richard Sackler until reached for comment for this story.
After consulting with museum founder Alan Engen, chairman emeritus of the museum’s foundation and son of Alf Engen, Nelson stated that Sackler was one of the original seed donors for the museum back in July 2002 before she began her work with the museum and has not donated since.
She also explained that although the museum’s site lists Sackler as an honorary board member, he no longer holds that position and that honorary board members did not participate much in the major decisions the board makes.
“I have no view (on the museum/Sackler issue) because I didn’t even know who he was,” Nelson said. “His donation was before my time here, and he hasn’t been on the letterhead.”
However, Richard Sackler was listed as a silver donor and former honorary board member in every issue of the now-discontinued Ski Meister, the museum’s newsletter, from 2003 until 2016 — though not in the most recent 2017 issue, which suggests that he retained the honorary position until at least 2016.
The museum’s site still lists the Richard and Kathe Sackler’s names and positions even after the controversy was brought to the staff’s attention.
The Sackler family is also involved in litigation in the state. In May 2018, Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes sued Purdue Pharma on behalf of the state, alleging that the company’s marketing pushed the benefits of opioids — specifically OxyContin — while knowing and hiding the potentially deadly risks. Reyes has continued his efforts, filing a court administrative action in January of this year specifically naming Richard and Kathe Sackler among the executives involved.
“While Purdue’s executives got rich, Utah was plunged into a national public health crisis,” Reyes said in a statement in January.
In March of this year, "Good Morning America" aired an interview with the family’s lawyer, David Bernick, who responded to these numerous cases against Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family.
“The Sackler family deeply feels the sorrow and the pain that this opioid epidemic has inflicted on people and their loved ones and their families,” Bernick said, citing the company’s actions to develop a tamper-resistant version of OxyContin released in 2010.
Even with Utah’s high number of opioid overdoses — ranking among the top 10 in the nation for the past decade, according to the Utah Health Department — and the state’s legal actions against the Sackler family, the accused family still has plenty of Utah ties, including a private ski chalet near Alta where locals say they take extended ski vacations.
A ski instructor and Park City resident from the Alf Engen Ski School, whose name has been withheld for job security reasons, said that the Sacklers regularly hire ski instructors from the school during their ski vacations.
“Once I figured out who they were, I was no longer surprised that they could afford long vacations with private instruction,” the source said. “I was just surprised it was happening here in Utah.”
Jenny Rollins is a freelance journalist with a degree in English from Brigham Young University and a master's in journalism from Boston University. Contact her at jennyjrollins@gmail.com.
