Stanford is drawing national attention — and ridicule — after they were caught swapping in a black female student for an Hispanic male student in advertising and banners on campus.
The story appeared in the New York Times, People.com, the New York Post and on CNN, NBC, NPR and Fox News, among others.
The altered photo first came to light in The Stanford Review, a conservative publication on campus cofounded by Peter Thiel.
The original image shows a female student on the left and two male students to her left, with all three smiling at the camera and posing with their food outside Star Ginger, a food stall in one of Stanford’s dining halls. The AI-edited image removed the rightmost male student and generated a Black woman in his place.
The Hispanic student who was removed from the photo was identified by the Review as Billy Ramirez, a junior studying human biology, who said he was shocked to see the photo.
“At first, I found it hilarious that they had used AI to completely change our appearances, including my race and gender. But after looking at the comparison, I was also upset because I don’t agree with Stanford making those choices about how we were represented,” he told the Review. “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 said being erased from the picture made him feel “silenced.”
A Stanford spokeswoman, Charlene Gage, told various media outlets that the altered photo violates Stanford’s policy and banners containing the altered image have been taken down.
Stanford hasn’t identified who on their staff used AI to alter the image except to say it came out of the Residential and Dining Enterprises Department. But the spokeswoman said, “We are working to provide additional training for all staff and ensure proper review of all materials.”
If the situation at Stanford sounds hilarious, consider that The Onion published a satirical story about the University of Iowa digitally adding a black guy to the cover of the school’s 2001 spring-semester course catalog to make the school seem more diverse.
At Stanford, students quickly recognized that the image had been manipulated, which Ramirez shared on social media. The comparison between the original and altered versions spread across Fizz, a popular anonymous social media platform for college campuses that launched at Stanford in 2024.
On Fizz, students ridiculed the university for penalizing students under the Honor Code for using generative AI in their schoolwork yet then doing the same thing itself.
People on social media also pointed out how AI was used to change the appearance of the other two people in the photo. And a Gap shirt was changed to a Stanford jersey.
As Reddit user “doorsandcrosscheck” said, “Truly appalling & also shocking. They did this for what? Selling more burgers and shakes? Clincher is that the poor 3 students were already diverse!! (& by no definition unattractive). That’s Stanford for you. Silicon Valley belligerence embodied.”
“And yet if students use AI they will get in trouble…” wrote FluffyB12.
Defending Stanford, “aeon_son” wrote, “This is such a non-issue and happens all the time in actual advertising. Kids probably weren’t paid as ‘talent’ for the photo, going into a paid ad. So using AI to change that can help solve that issue – changes their likeness to not real people. Then adding in the black student adds a little diversity to the image, so it casts a wider net – bringing in more ad revenue. This ain’t some DEI conspiracy, it’s just common practice.”
Another Reddit user wrote, “Man, everyone is talking about the race switch and I can’t help but to feel terrible for the Asian woman. This would have wrecked my self esteem at that age.”
The race-switch photo comes at a time when the Department of Justice is investigating whether Stanford has been using DEI to discriminate based on race. The department’s civil rights division wants to know if school is complying with the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in the 2023 case Students for Fair Admissions Inc. v. Fellows of Harvard College, which banned discrimination in admissions.
It’s funny how the people in our community who preach “ethics” to others lack ethics themselves. I could make a list of local hypocrites.
Man oh man… Palo Alto and Stanford tout tolerance, diversity and the whole “hate has no place here”
But yet here we are… another example of racism by proxy.