Stanford University has faced a fresh backlash over AI-generated imagery after removing a depiction of an entirely white, male marching band from its website following protests from students.
The image appeared on the university’s Campus Center construction site and showed musicians in red blazers, white shirts and fedoras performing in White Plaza.
Members of the Leland Stanford Junior University Marching Band told The Stanford Daily they were stunned to discover the AI-created image had been published without their knowledge.
Drum major Jose Serrano described the university’s decision as “pretty stupid.”
“If you’re going to use AI, make an AI thing for your building, but don’t put people on it,” he said.
Band conductor and executive officer Sadie Taylor said the image was especially disappointing because the organization has worked to build a more diverse membership.
“We work pretty hard to champion diversity within the organization and try and encourage women and students of color to join,” she said. “So to see the University sort of undo all of that, it’s pretty frustrating.”
Taylor and other band leaders contacted the Campus Center team on Monday, noting that genuine photographs of the group were readily available.
“We welcome you to use one of those, instead of falsifying an all-white, all-male, AI slop version of the Band,” they wrote.
The university soon removed the image and replaced it with a different architectural rendering.
Taylor said the band was not consulted before the image was published. Serrano also questioned the decision to create figures resembling real students without their consent.
“Our likenesses are being put into this AI algorithm and spit out and spat out, which is just ridiculous. It’s insane,” he said.
Stanford said the image was an architectural visualization designed to show the Commons Great Room, a feature of the broader Campus Center redevelopment project.
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Angie Davis, the university’s assistant vice president of communications, said the people shown were illustrative figures and were not meant to portray marching band members.
“AI-assisted imagery is standard industry practice for architectural visualization,” Davis wrote in an email to The Stanford Daily.
Band members rejected that explanation, saying the figures wore clothing closely matching the group’s distinctive uniforms. Some also believed the generated people bore a resemblance to actual band members.
Stanford’s AI rules prohibit creating “content that depicts, impersonates, or closely resembles a real person.” The university has not indicated whether it considers the marching band image a violation of those guidelines.
The dispute comes after a separate controversy in September, when Stanford acknowledged that it had violated its own AI policies by digitally modifying a photograph used in promotional materials.
Billy Ramirez, a Hispanic student, was removed from a 2024 Lunar New Year celebration photo and replaced with an AI-generated Black woman. Two other students pictured were also digitally edited to look thinner.
The alterations, first reported by the student publication The Stanford Review, led Stanford to take down the promotional banners.
“Both the alteration and lack of disclosure in this case violate that policy,” Stanford said in a statement, adding that it would provide additional training and strengthen reviews of promotional material.
Ramirez described the experience as upsetting.
“To see me erased like that so easily was kind of very upsetting,” he said.
Stanford’s policy prohibits using AI to produce or alter images of university people, events, research, facilities or achievements.
While the university acknowledged a policy breach in Ramirez’s case, it defended the marching band image as an illustrative rendering rather than a depiction of identifiable people.
