Brings to mind Q's statement of some "not being able to walk down the street".
https://nypost.com/2019/05/11/nyc-society-shuns-cesspool-sackler-family-over-oxycontin-fortune/
But according to author Michael Gross, the Sacklers ought to brace themselves for further backlash.
“What you are seeing now is a much less forgiving environment for bad behavior,” said Gross, author of “Rogues’ Gallery: The Secret Story of the Lust, Lies, Greed, and Betrayals That Made the Metropolitan Museum of Art.”
“The laundering of reputations through philanthropy used to be a frictionless process. Now it’s a bumpy road and sometimes even detours lead to dead ends.”
Indeed, nonprofits are steering clear of the Sacklers, despite them being worth some $13 billion, per a 2016 Forbes article.
“I wouldn’t accept donations from them,” said one top NYC philanthropist who sits on multiple museum boards. “The name is definitely sullied. And deservedly so.”
In March, London’s National Portrait Gallery refused a $1.3 million grant from the family. That month, The Wall Street Journal reported that Fifth Avenue hedge fund Hildene Capital Management had axed the Sacklers as clients due to an opioid-related tragedy that befell someone close to Hildene.
“The weight on my conscience led me to terminate the relationship,” Hildene fund manager Brett Jefferson told the paper.
London’s Tate museums announced they would no longer take donations from the Sacklers.
The Guggenheim, which had received $9 million of the family’s money, declared they would no longer accept future gifts, despite Mortimer being a former board member. (He stepped down last year because he was “overextended,” his spokesperson told the New York Times in April.)
Even family members are distancing themselves from one another.
Elizabeth Sackler, benefactor of her namesake Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum, called her family’s role in the opioid epidemic “morally abhorrent” in a January 2019 statement.
Purdue Pharma was purchased in 1952 by Elizabeth’s father, Arthur, and his two brothers, Raymond and Mortimer Sackler. They relocated the business from Greenwich Village to Yonkers (its headquarters are now in Stamford, Conn.). As the brothers’ fortunes grew, so did their families. Arthur has four children; Mortimer, seven; Raymond, two. The three brothers are deceased.