Appraisal Institute Vice President Forced Out As Sexual Harassment Claims Swirl

The vice president of the Appraisal Institute was ousted from the trade group during an emergency board meeting Wednesday.

Craig Steinley, a longtime executive at AI, was voted off the board by at least a two-thirds majority. His exit comes as AI and Steinley face two recently filed lawsuits — one for fraud and another for sexual harassment — and a bruising exposé in the New York Times that uncovered allegations against Steinley by up to a dozen women. 

“This has been a painful period for our members and our wider community. This had become a matter of the wellbeing and trust of the Appraisal Institute as an organization, which is greater than any one individual,” AI President Paula Konikoff wrote in a note to members after the meeting. 

Steinley, who had previously agreed to step back from public appearances after the allegations became public, was defiant after the vote. He pledged to vigorously defend himself against what he described as baseless claims. 

“The Appraisal Institute’s decision to remove me from office is not just disappointing — it is a deliberate act of retaliation driven by internal politics, not principle,” Steinley said in a statement through his attorney, Craig Capilla. “It reflects a leadership culture more interested in cowering to a mob mentality and silencing independent voices than addressing the real challenges facing our profession.”

A spokesperson for AI confirmed that the board had voted to remove Steinley, saying it was acting in the best interest of the organization. The 28-member board took more than three hours to come to the decision during Wednesday’s meeting, the NYT reported. 

The suit was filed by Cindy Chance, the former CEO of AI who says she was fired for pushing for internal reform at the organization. In the suit, she outlines several interactions with Steinley that she said made her uncomfortable. 

In one instance, Chance alleges that Steinley groped her buttocks in a hallway just minutes after she raised the issue of sexual harassment during a board meeting. Chance alleges that Steinley’s behavior was widespread and well-known within the agency, but that no corrective action was taken. 

Chance said in an interview Thursday that she believed that the board acted to remove Steinley only because the allegations had spilled into the public.

“It's only because people stepped up at considerable personal and professional risk to tell the truth that this is happening,” she said. “I don't mean to say that as if I'm happy about that, but it was necessary.” 

The filing of Chance’s lawsuit coincided with The NYT report that identified a dozen women who said they had uncomfortable interactions with Steinley ranging from inappropriate comments and uncomfortably long hugs to groping. 

The NYT also uncovered a $412K sexual harassment settlement paid to a former employee who named Steinley and claimed AI was “a sexually hostile work environment.” 

Steinley disputes the allegations from Chance and the other women, saying that investigations had been conducted that provided evidence to the board that the allegations were unsubstantiated. 

“Despite these findings, the Institute has chosen to move forward with a course of action that appears more concerned with reputation management and internal power consolidation than with truth or fairness,” he said.

Chance’s suit was filed less than a month after another former employee sued the organization, alleging that she was fired for flagging errors in how AI was reporting scores for the tests it offers to state agencies.

AI is one trade group in an expansive ecosystem that supports and regulates the appraisal industry. One of its primary functions is offering courses and tests to certify new appraisers and keep existing ones in good standing. 

Alissa Akins, the former director of education and publications at AI, sued the organization in March, alleging that AI was knowingly misreporting test results to oversight bodies. In some cases, that led appraisers to be certified despite having not passed the requisite exam. In others, agencies were told that appraisers who passed the test had failed. 

That suit, first reported by Bisnow, accused AI of committing fraud through the faulty testing regime. AI responded in a motion to dismiss that the allegations alleged by Akins, even if true, didn’t rise to the level of fraud. A judge will consider the motion on July 22.

A host of appraisers and state-level trade groups have been calling for sweeping reforms and the firing of Steinley after the allegations became public. His pledge to step away from public appearances wasn’t enough for some organizations, including the Northern California and Western Pennsylvania chapters of the Appraisal Institute.

Paul Chandler, president of the Northern California group, wrote in an update to members published to LinkedIn that senior AI executives were hesitant to answer questions related to Steinley at AI’s May Leadership Development and Advisory Council meeting. 

He said AI was currently facing a crisis of confidence and called on the organization to remove Steinley from leadership and to conduct an independent investigation that would publicly report its findings. 

Critics of AI and the two lawsuits describe the leadership as an insular group that protects senior members while directing contracts to their allies.   

“A complete governance overhaul is necessary,” Chance said. “I believe that the behavior has been enabled by the other officers, members of the audit committee and board members as well. I think the organization needs to take a good hard look at itself and reform.”