Coleman hopes banking experience sheds light, brings resolution to racial double standards

On a Friday afternoon, a man who is new to the city of Oshkosh walks into a local bank to cash a check. This is the first check from his new job. Actually, he goes to the very bank that cut the check. The very bank that his employer contracts to handle financial matters. Instead of a payday gratification, he is turned away, but not because of insufficient funds.

This is the story of Dr. Samuel Coleman, the new Assistant Superintendent of Instruction for the Oshkosh Area School District. On July 7, Coleman walked into the Associated Bank Branch on West 20th Avenue in Oshkosh to cash his paycheck, only to be met with suspicion. Coleman, who is African American, believes this scrutiny only arose due to the color of his skin.

Coleman, who recently moved from Virginia for this new position, had to go in person to cash his check as, with the numerous obligations demanded by his role, he hadn’t had time to create a district protocol.

“I didn’t have a direct deposit set up here yet. So when I got my first check, it was a paper check,” he said. “ I usually bank with US Bank or Educators Credit Union, but Associated Bank is who the check was drawn under and its branch was closest, so I just said, ‘oh, I'll go to Associated Bank.’”

He says that he was essentially denied service without any identity verifications even being attempted.

“The assistant bank manager did not attempt to verify the legitimacy of the check nor attempt to verify my identity. He just looked at the check, looked at me, and said, ‘I'm not cashing it,’” he said.

Coleman later learned, after multiple meetings with the bank, that he was suspected of trying to commit fraud by the employees. He was surprised at this accusation, and questioned what in that interaction was fraudulent as his identity wasn’t even verified, nor was the legitimacy of the check. The denial was triggered not by an online check but by a simple look.

“At that moment, I felt like I was being profiled based on my racial identity,” he said. “Why would someone immediately suspect that a person might be committing fraud and then have no basis for that suspicion?” 

Coleman feels that part of the issue is solely based on the amount of his check and his color.

“They just assumed the amount of the check, which due to being an assistant superintendent is going to be higher, but appropriate for what my job is,” Coleman said. “And so if in his mind he’s thinking ‘this isn't somebody who could make this amount of money, so therefore, this must be a fraudulent check, and I'm just gonna deny them service,’ that’s part of the problem.”

Coleman felt ignored when he tried to work with the bank to resolve the issue, which is the reason he took his story to the press. His experience was published by WBAY on September 27.  

“When I attempted to work with the bank to discuss and resolve my experience, I didn't get any cooperation from the bank,” he said. “I was essentially ignored and kind of, as we say, run through the ringer. It’s like, ‘we'll have a conversation with you, we'll talk to you about what happened, but we won't make any commitments for what we will do going forward to make sure that this doesn’t happen to you or other people.’”

After that, Coleman said the bank fully ignored him and offered no resolution. This is not his first such experience as people believe he’s suspicious or make assumptions based on his racial identity. Unfortunately, Coleman has picked up lessons over the years in dealing with discriminatory experiences.

“I've just learned through my lived experiences to document, to record, to keep my cool, and in those situations, to not act rashly, so that this doesn't somehow get flipped on me,” he said. “And so all of those experiences throughout my life have really trained me on how to have those encounters.”

Coleman recorded the bank’s calls in order for people to believe him.

“I needed to record that conversation, because they specifically said in the meeting that they didn't follow their policy, the check should have been cashed,” he said. “I shared that clip that I recorded with the reporter, but if I hadn't recorded, then people would probably say there had to have been something else to it or there has to be some other explanation for it.”

Coleman hopes his experiences can shed light and bring change so others don’t have to go through similar experiences.

“I believe that nobody should be denied service based on their identity. Whether it’s gender, race, national origin, the language they speak,” Coleman said. “If the agency that oversees a bank or school or whatever institution says that it is illegal and unlawful to discriminate and to deny service, then we should follow that law and not discriminate against people, but that wasn’t my experience.”

When contacted for an interview request for this story, Associated Bank released a statement saying, “We have met with our contacts from the Oshkosh Area School District and discussed the situation and internal procedural enhancements are being made.”

Following the incident, the district has thought about changing banks, according to Superintendent Bryan Davis.

“What the school board has decided to do is a request for proposals for our banking services, which is probably a natural thing that we should be doing anyway on a regular basis,” he said. “Dr. Coleman's situation certainly brought to light the need to make sure that we’re continuing to evaluate who our partners are from in our financial institutions. 

Davis says that this process will require time.

“We’ll run a fair competitive process for our Social Services, and may diversify our resources more so than they are right now,” he said. “We don’t know the results of that yet and that process is going to be reported out to the school board in November, and will have criteria that includes our values and how we work with our employees as part of that process.”

Despite being unresolved, Coleman isn’t letting this experience sour his outlook on his new home.

“I would just like to say that I’m not allowing that experience at the bank to define what my experience would be here in Oshkosh,” Coleman said. “I’m aware that I’m living in a community that is not very racially diverse, and I knew that before I came here and I’m okay with that.”

by Fahad Mian

Published October 30, 2023

Oshkosh West Index Issue 120 Volume 2