Paul B. Barringer | |
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| 6th President of Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College and Polytechnic Institute | |
| In office September 1, 1907 – July 1, 1913 | |
| Preceded by | John McLaren McBryde |
| Succeeded by | Joseph Dupuy Eggleston |
| Personal details | |
| Born | February 13, 1857 Concord, North Carolina, U.S. |
| Died | January 9, 1941 (aged 83) Charlottesville, Virginia, U.S. |
| Residence | Barringer Mansion |
| Alma mater | University of Virginia |
| Profession | Physician, educator |
| Signature | .png){kind=small} |
Paul Brandon Barringer (February 13, 1857 – January 9, 1941) was an American physician and college administrator, the sixth president of Virginia Tech, serving from September 1, 1907 through July 1, 1913. He was also chairman of the faculty at the University of Virginia (then equivalent to president) from 1895 through 1903. He made major changes to the medical curriculum at U.Va, adding requirements for clinical training, as was common in Europe.
Barringer gained national attention in 1900, when a talk he gave to a southern medical association was printed and distributed to other regional medical groups. It was entitled The American Negro: His Past and Future, and he explored what he described as "the Negro problem" in the South. At the time, prior to the Great Migration, African Americans made up the majority of population in numerous counties, and he advocated a practice of racial eugenics. In this period, southern states were passing laws to disenfranchise African Americans and exclude them from the political system, while passing Jim Crow laws and the one drop rule, which penalized persons of any known African ancestry. During Barringer's tenure as chairman of the faculty, U.Va., perceived by many Southerners as the region's flagship university, became a hotbed of eugenics teaching that continued under its first president Edwin Alderman who took over when the Jeffersonian system of faculty rule ended in 1904. Since its founding in 1819, U.Va traditionally was an academy for Virginia's planter class aristocracy whose interest in family lineage went hand in hand with the science of improving the human stock.
After resigning the VPI presidency, Barringer returned to Charlottesville and practiced medicine. He served the United States government for a few years during World War I by supervising public health in some mining towns. After the war he returned to his farm and medical practice.