Billy Ramirez had collected a plate of noodles at a Lunar New Year party in 2024 when a Stanford University photographer snapped a picture of him alongside two other students.
The university’s dining service posted the photo online the next day. But when Stanford used the image on banners last week, a Black woman had replaced Mr. Ramirez. The other students’ appearances had been altered so that they appeared thinner.
“To see me erased like that so easily was kind of very upsetting,” Mr. Ramirez, who is Hispanic, said in an interview on Tuesday.
Mr. Ramirez, a senior who is majoring in human biology, said there was “a comedic element” to the matter. Nevertheless, he said that he was frustrated by Stanford’s move, which he learned about from a friend.
Stanford acknowledged in a statement on Tuesday that it had used artificial intelligence to change the original image.
“Stanford’s A.I. policy is clear: The use of A.I. in producing or altering images of Stanford people, events, research, facilities or achievements is strictly prohibited,” the university said. “Both the alteration and lack of disclosure in this case violate that policy. We are working with Residential and Dining Enterprises to provide additional training and ensure proper review of all materials.”
The other students in the original photograph — an Asian woman and a man Mr. Ramirez said was also of Hispanic descent — did not respond to emails on Tuesday.
The episode comes as colleges and universities, largely because of pressure from the Trump administration, are weighing how and whether to embrace diversity efforts on their campuses. The New York Times reported in March that the Justice Department had begun examining admissions practices at Stanford’s medical school. The next month, the Education Department said it had opened an inquiry into whether Stanford had illegally used race to discriminate in a teacher training program.
The altered photo, first reported by The Stanford Review, also underscores how A.I. misuse is unfolding on campuses and the lengths to which some colleges and universities go to portray themselves as welcoming.
And it is not the first time a school has ended up in a tempest over manipulated photography.
In 2000, for example, the University of Wisconsin-Madison drew criticism after it added a Black student to the cover of its undergraduate application booklet; white students had filled the original image. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported then that the university would spend about $64,000 — about $123,000 in today’s money — to reprint the booklets.
The 100,000 new brochures, the university decided, would instead feature a sunset photo of a popular spot on campus.
Nearly two decades later, York College of Pennsylvania removed two white students from a photograph for a billboard and replaced them with a man of Asian descent and a woman who was wearing a head covering that appeared to be religious in nature. In statements published at the time by a television station, the college said that the imagery reflected the college’s diversity but that school officials “should have made a better decision” while under deadline pressure.
Overtly doctored imagery, however, is thought to be only a sporadic occurrence in higher education marketing materials. More commonly, universities select or stage photos that suggest that their campuses are more diverse than they actually are.
In a study published in the Journal of Marketing for Higher Education in 2013, researchers found that schools’ recruitment materials often hinted that they enrolled more Black students than they did.
After assessing demographic data about student bodies, the researchers also concluded that white and Asian people were overrepresented in the images that were a part of the study. Hispanic students were underrepresented.
The study’s authors wrote that they did not believe the schools in their sample necessarily acted “unethically” by altering the photographs with software. Rather, they wrote that they were “suggesting that the consistency at which institutions of higher education presented misleading depictions of racial diversity leads us to the understanding that it is intentional and near universal.”
They added, “It is clear that racial diversity is being used as a commodity in the marketing of higher education and presenting an image of diversity is more important than accurately portraying the student body.”
Enrollment records show that Stanford had 17,314 students last fall and that 3,406 were American citizens or permanent residents who were classified in the university’s “underrepresented minority” category. Another 4,431 were international students.
On Tuesday, Mr. Ramirez said he was skeptical that the altered picture had accurately represented the university’s student body.
He also said he had not heard from Stanford about the picture.
“I’m just a little surprised that a photo from years ago resurfaced,” he said.
Hours later, Stanford said it was removing the banners.
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