Stanford AI Usage, ‘Face Swaps’ on Campus Banner Spark National Backlash
Stanford University senior Billy Ramirez returned to campus this fall to find that the university’s housing and dining department used artificial intelligence to replace him with a Black woman on a public banner.
Stanford Residential and Dining Enterprises, which oversees the university’s housing operations, dining services and campus conferences, hung the promotional banner in a student housing center, according to The Stanford Daily.
The outlet also reported that the original photo, taken in Stern Dining during a 2024 Lunar New Year celebration, was previously used unaltered.
In addition to replacing Ramirez, Stanford R&DE made significant changes to the other two students’ faces. The edits and use of AI caused a stir on the campus social media app, Fizz, according to the Daily, consequently drawing national attention.
“Seeing my identity changed and being left out of the picture made me feel, in a way, silenced and erased from a representation that was supposed to include me,” Ramirez told the Stanford Review, an independent paper founded by venture capitalist and university alum Peter Thiel.
Ramirez’s class was the last cohort admitted to a U.S. college before the Supreme Court gutted affirmative action in 2023. The Brookings Institute found that these changes had a sizable impact on the racial profile of college populations across the country.
At Stanford, enrollment for Black or African American students fell from 8.9% to 4.5% and enrollment for Hispanic or Latino students fell from 16.7% to 14.6%.
At the same time, Asian student enrollment increased from 28.8% to 33%, and White student enrollment increased from 21.9% to 24.1%.
Universities have a long history of artificially diversifying models in their marketing. In 2019, Inside Higher Ed reported on a series of incidents, including one at York College of Pennsylvania, where the school used Photoshop to replace two white students “with an African American student and (seemingly) Muslim student.”
The article said marketing departments make these decisions to encourage diversity and to “represent an image of the student body that was in the spirit of diversity goals”— but that students can see through the false advertising.
In an email to KQED, Stanford spokesperson Charlene Gage said that the university “reviewed the matter and confirmed that AI was used to alter the image in violation of the university policy.”
Gage said that Stanford removed the banners with the image in question and “are working to provide additional training for all staff and ensure proper review.”
The Stanford Daily also reported that the students altered alongside Ramirez filed a Title VI report and have called for Stanford to take additional action in an anonymous Substack titled “The Other Two.”