Stanford recently published an AI-generated image of an ensemble of all white, all-male musicians performing in front of the Stanford Bookstore, in an obvious imitation of the Leland Stanford Junior University Marching Band (LSJUMB). This is now part of a recurring pattern of Stanford staff using AI — whether that be to race swap students or make portraits of Black people — getting called out and then having to furiously backpedal.
Frankly, it’s embarrassing to watch. More than that, it’s actively insulting. The implication, whether or not Stanford staff intend it, is that reality is not good enough. Black art isn’t as good as what an AI can make; real students aren’t as appealing as their artificial counterparts. The LSJUMB can’t be shown as it actually is.
The Band deserves better from the university. We all do.
The AI image sends the message that the university is too ashamed of its band to celebrate it, which is a baffling notion. Look: As a member of the Band, I can understand, in concept, why the university might want to distance itself. The Band has had its fair share of controversies.
We were banned from the State of Oregon for 15 years for criticizing the logging industry’s destruction of spotted owl habitats in the Pacific Northwest. When UCLA football players were exposed for illegally occupying handicapped spots, we rolled the Stanford Tree out in a wheelchair and assumed a disability placard formation.
More worryingly, and of particular concern to me as a survivor of sexual assault, the university once cracked down on the Band following years of institutional hazing, sexual harassment and alcohol use. It wasn’t the first time.
But the Leland Stanford Junior University Marching Band of today is a far cry from the LSJUMB of even just ten years ago. Posters with sexual assault hotlines line almost every wall in the Band Shak, our home away from home away from home. It’s common for “I ❤ Consent” pins to be worn on members’ hats as we run around performing. In spite of any prior reputational issues, you’ll find members today coveting Cherry Coke more than alcohol.
In other words, the band is human — the opposite of what Stanford made it out to be in their post. It’s an active symbol of the immense power of individual people, bonded by love for music and each other, to change things for the better, and also to wear ugly hats while doing so.
Perhaps in recognition of this growth, the university has publicly promoted the Band, with framed photographs, social media posts, and orientation events that all put the spotlight on the LSJUMB. That’s why it’s so hurtful that this insulting AI post would be allowed to slip through the cracks.
I am particularly offended because of how the Band has created a safe space for me. I am a transgender student and have to deal with the assorted baggage that often brings. It’s normal for me to move through life operating under the assumption that my very presence is going to make other people uncomfortable or disgusted — assuming, of course, that they don’t simply become violent.
It’s a necessary assumption, one that has kept me from brushing up against too many incidents of violence and unwanted attention in my life, but not one I want to have to make.
Stanford, for all of its progressive values, hasn’t shattered this mindset — whether out of need or out of habit, or both. The band has been maybe the only place on campus where that simple assumption that I am, by default, unwanted has been proactively proven wrong.
My attempts to put walls up were swiftly disarmed by a community of people whose sole mission in life seems to be to rock out and have as much fun doing so as possible.
Fun(k) and vibrancy practically bleed from the Band. Any number of shenanigans can and do happen every week, from members hurling saxophones into the air during performances to linking arms with each other and frolicking in the middle of a song. Only the Band would ritualistically crucify an effigy of Oski every year on top of the Claw, or scream “I GOT IT! I GOT IT!” to distract the opposing women’s volleyball teams unfortunate enough to play in Maples.
LSJUMB embodies such a distinctly human sense of joy and whimsy, which makes the AI version of the band that much more soulless. Gone is the multiethnic composition of the Band, replaced by a vision of a monochrome ensemble that hasn’t been accurate for years. In a supposed image of an organization with people from all genders — in my section alone, women and nonbinary people consistently match or outnumber the men — only men are shown.
Regardless of how or why that image was put up, the university needs to do better. The band deserves to be portrayed just like it is in real life: a group of people from all ethnicities, all genders, all backgrounds, having fun — and rocking out.