{"id":1000,"date":"2024-09-10T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-09-10T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/scenechange\/?p=1000"},"modified":"2024-08-27T18:17:54","modified_gmt":"2024-08-27T18:17:54","slug":"whats-next-fair-harvard-the-alois-hitler-theaterzentrum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/scenechange\/2024\/09\/10\/whats-next-fair-harvard-the-alois-hitler-theaterzentrum\/","title":{"rendered":"What\u2019s Next, Fair Harvard? The Alois Hitler Theaterzentrum?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Despite everything, Harvard chooses to keep the Sackler name on its museum. Why?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
500,000 deaths and not even so much as an apology.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Back in 2022, members of the Harvard College Overdose Prevention and Education Students, a campus group dedicated to overdose awareness, petitioned Harvard\u2019s administration to remove Arthur M. Sackler\u2019s name from campus buildings. The petition was not a haphazard one and had teeth because it followed the guidelines for such de-naming actions provided by Harvard\u2019s Faculty of Arts and Sciences Process for Denaming Spaces, Programs, or other Entities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harvard \u2014 unlike Tufts University in Massachusetts, the Guggenheim and Metropolitan Museums in New York, the Louvre in Paris, and both the Tate Modern and Tate Britain galleries in London \u2014 just refused. In their rebuff of the request, the committee responded that it was \u201cnot persuaded by the proposal\u2019s arguments that de-naming is appropriate because Arthur Sackler\u2019s name is tainted by association with other members of the Sackler family, or because Arthur Sackler shares responsibility for the opioid crisis due to his having developed aggressive pharmaceutical marketing techniques that others misused after his death.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, I suppose, this grave insult to humanity is not Harvard\u2019s to deal with. I mean, the company was sued and lost, but still hasn\u2019t paid its damages and refuses to apologize for killing half a million people so far. <\/em>Even though they knew the drug was addictive and dangerous. And they knew their work caused all those deaths even before they happened.<\/em> Oh, right. Allegedly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My question is this: what artist would want <\/em>their work represented in a museum with Sackler\u2019s name on it? The same who might choreograph for the Besarion Jughashvili \u0411\u0430\u043b\u0435\u0442 Studio at the Harvard Dance Center? Or who might do plays at the Alois Hitler Theaterzentrum under the administration of American Repertory Theatre<\/a>? After all, it was not Stalin or Hitler\u2019s fathers, respectively, who were the bad guys, right? They didn\u2019t kill millions of people, did they? The College certainly would have no problem naming these buildings after them. Why should the artists?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Makes me wonder about the exhibition Objects of Addiction: Opium, Empire, and the Chinese Art Trade<\/a> that happened at the museums of Harvard early this year. Given that the money for the building was paid for by purveyors of deadly opiates, it seems a contradiction in messaging, don\u2019t you think?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unlike Alanis Morissette\u2019s wobbly definition, that\u2019s true irony. After all, it\u2019s just a plant with seeds that you put on bagels, right? How harmful could that be?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Oh. I see. Maybe that\u2019s just me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyway, the problem is this: when nonprofit arts organizations (the Arthur M. Sackler Museum is an art museum on the campus of a nonprofit educational organization) start to waver on financial blackmail, extortion, and invite toxic donors to wash their reputations, it is not unlike deciding to use your clean, white towels to wipe the hands of someone covered in feces. Your nonprofit is the towel and the excrement-covered person is the toxic donor. The towel ultimately gets covered in unremovable feces while the person still reeks of feculence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Even SHE thinks it stinks. (Photo by Marco Carmona from Pexels)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Sorry for the scatological analogy, but do you want your organization to be the s**t-ridden towel? Unfortunately for all of us, but it\u2019s obvious that some would \u2026 for the right price. After all, this stuff is still happening. Which means for those who would sell their reputation for money, the old punch line is true about prostitution and social climbing: we know what you are; you\u2019re just negotiating the price.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
That’s the donor on the left. Got it?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I know that some of you don\u2019t really care about the rest of the arts-mosphere in which you do business, but almost all of you at least say <\/em>you do. If you do, then remember this: when you decide to get dirty by engaging toxic stakeholders, it affects the entire industry. Every single nonprofit arts organization will then have to add that to their conversations with individual, corporate, and government donors. They\u2019ll have to say out loud <\/em>that they want no association with toxicity, or, conversely, that they do. Either way, it tars the whole field as corrupt, deaf to the needs of the community, and abruptly insensitive to those whose lives were destroyed by that stakeholder\u2019s toxicity. And everyone will \u2014 appropriately<\/em> \u2014 blame you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Simply put, just like Harvard right now (and protests are happening on campus), you\u2019ll look bad. Why would you ever want that? Do you have that little respect for the work you do for the community? Or, on second thought, does your nonprofit arts organization work for the community first or do you just produce \u201cart for art\u2019s sake\u201d or some such nonsense? Maybe that\u2019s <\/em>why you\u2019re so eager to take money from the Sacklers. You might be just as toxic. Are you?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Despite everything, Harvard chooses to keep the Sackler name on its museum. Why?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1001,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,100,40,32,25,19,18,17,27,99],"tags":[105],"class_list":{"0":"post-1000","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-culture","8":"category-book-recommendation","9":"category-change","10":"category-charity","11":"category-development-and-fundraising","12":"category-leadership","13":"category-nonprofit","14":"category-nonprofit-arts-organizations","15":"category-philanthropy-and-donors","16":"category-scene-change","17":"tag-toxic","18":"entry"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/scenechange\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Oxycodone-bottle.jpg?fit=1000%2C633&ssl=1","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":795,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/scenechange\/2024\/03\/12\/you-cannot-be-serious\/","url_meta":{"origin":1000,"position":0},"title":"You Cannot Be Serious.","author":"Alan Harrison","date":"March 12, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"You remember the Sackler family, don't you? Well, they're baa-aack. This is not good news.","rel":"","context":"In "Arts and Culture"","block_context":{"text":"Arts and Culture","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/scenechange\/category\/arts-and-culture\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/scenechange\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Those-Darn-Sacklers1.jpg?fit=896%2C600&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/scenechange\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Those-Darn-Sacklers1.jpg?fit=896%2C600&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/scenechange\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Those-Darn-Sacklers1.jpg?fit=896%2C600&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/scenechange\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Those-Darn-Sacklers1.jpg?fit=896%2C600&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":993,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/scenechange\/2024\/09\/03\/scene-change-2-now-available-for-preorder\/","url_meta":{"origin":1000,"position":1},"title":"Scene Change 2 Now Available for Preorder","author":"Alan Harrison","date":"September 3, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"As a follow-up and companion to the book SCENE CHANGE, I have just completed SCENE CHANGE 2.","rel":"","context":"In "Arts and Culture"","block_context":{"text":"Arts and Culture","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/scenechange\/category\/arts-and-culture\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/scenechange\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/COVER-Art-Scene-Change-2.jpg?fit=778%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/scenechange\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/COVER-Art-Scene-Change-2.jpg?fit=778%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/scenechange\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/COVER-Art-Scene-Change-2.jpg?fit=778%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/scenechange\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/COVER-Art-Scene-Change-2.jpg?fit=778%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1048,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/scenechange\/2024\/09\/17\/nonprofit-arts-organizations-whats-a-community\/","url_meta":{"origin":1000,"position":2},"title":"Nonprofit Arts Organizations: What\u2019s a \u201cCommunity?\u201d","author":"Alan Harrison","date":"September 17, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Say it, out loud. 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