A Stanford University Latino student's discovery that he had been replaced by an AI-generated Black woman in a campus advertisement has raised questions about digital identity, diversity in university marketing, and the use of artificial intelligence without students' knowledge.
Stanford University has acknowledged violating its own artificial intelligence policy after its Residential & Dining Enterprises department used AI to remove a Latino student from a promotional photograph, replace him with a Black woman, and digitally alter the appearances of two other students.
The controversy, first reported by the student-run Stanford Review on September 21, has moved beyond the altered photograph. It has exposed a contradiction at a university internationally recognized for its AI research: Stanford prohibits the use of artificial intelligence to fabricate or modify images of its own students, yet one of its departments did exactly that.
The student at the center of the controversy, Billy Ramirez, a member of Stanford's class of 2027, discovered the alteration when a friend sent him a comparison of the original photograph and a campus welcome banner.
The original image was taken during a 2024 Lunar New Year celebration in a Stanford dining hall. It showed Ramirez alongside two other students, smiling and holding plates of food. In the altered version, Ramirez had disappeared, replaced by an entirely AI-generated Black woman wearing Stanford merchandise. The other students remained in the photograph, but their faces had been modified to make them appear thinner.
The Stanford Daily
Ramirez initially found the discovery amusing. His reaction changed when he considered what the university had done with his image.
"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," he told the Stanford Review.
Ramírez, who hails from California and identifies himself as the Mexican American of a single Mexican mother, is studying human biology. According to the website of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute, he spent his summer doing an internship in Washington, DC, where he worked at the office of Rep. Sam Liccardo.
His experience raises a question for universities increasingly using AI-generated promotional material: What happens when an institution changes the identities of real students to create an image of campus life that never existed?
The altered photograph appeared on "Welcome Home" banners promoting Stanford's residential and dining services. According to The Stanford Daily, one of the banners was displayed at the Governor's Corner student housing complex. The university has since removed it.
The incident also raises questions about the representation of Latino students. Ramirez, who is Hispanic, was not simply retouched or digitally enhanced. His likeness was eliminated and replaced with a fictional student of a different race and gender. Stanford has not publicly explained why those particular changes were made, and there is no confirmed evidence that the department intended to alter the racial composition of the photograph.
Stanford public relations director Charlene Gage confirmed the use of AI and acknowledged that the department had broken university rules.
"Both the alteration and lack of disclosure in this case violate that policy," Gage told The Stanford Daily, adding that the university was working to provide additional staff training and strengthen its review of promotional materials.
Stanford's rules expressly prohibit using AI to produce or modify images depicting university students, events, research, facilities or achievements. The incident therefore involved both an unauthorized alteration and a failure to disclose that the resulting image was artificial.
The Stanford Daily
