Barringer went beyond advocating for now-discredited views of racial superiority. His medical research laid the intellectual foundation in Virginia and across the country for discrimination based on race, nationality, intellectual ability and education. As chairman of the faculty from 1896 to 1903, he also oversaw efforts to hire and direct faculty members who shared his views.

He was part of an effort to turn UVA into a “leading eugenics research center,” according to a 2018 report that documented the university’s support of slavery and white supremacy before the Civil War. His colleagues and contemporaries — James Cabell, Edwin Alderman, Harvey Jordan and Ivey Foreman Lewis — each advocated for racial pseudoscience that tried to rank races, and supported forced sterilization and other policies that tried to nudge society toward their elite, whiter ideal.

UVA has already removed the names of Jordan and Lewis from buildings. Alderman Library is being renovated, and officials have so far not said whether they intend to retain the first president’s name above the main entrance.

The university has a committee that considers requests to change names of buildings, but Muehling said she hopes the university also will take further action to acknowledge and atone for its promotion of eugenics.