Meow Wolf accused of gender discrimination

Men had better chances for advancement, suit says

SANTA FE — Two women who held creative positions with Meow Wolf have filed suit against the burgeoning arts and entertainment corporation, alleging gender discrimination and violations of the New Mexico Minimum Wage Act.

Tara Khozein and Gina Maciuszek, who the suit says were both terminated by Meow Wolf since November of last year, seek to represent a “company-wide class” of all female employees of the arts company since 2017 and raise issues including whether female employees “have been advanced at rates that are disproportionately low compared to the rates at which males have been advanced.”

Efforts to reach officials at Meow Wolf for comment by phone and email on Tuesday were not successful.

The suit, filed Monday by Santa Fe law firm Hinkle Shanor, says Khozein — who has been active in local theater productions — was hired as a performance content director for Meow Wolf Entertainment in September 2018.

She was fired in February after reporting to management that “she had observed both racial and gender discrimination within the company,” the suit says. Khozein also had offered in an email to Meow Wolf’s human resources vice president to “assist in focusing efforts on diversity relations within the company.”

The suit also maintains that while Khozein was hired as a part-time employee for $385 a week, she routinely worked more than 40 hours weekly and did not receive overtime pay.

Maciuszek was hired as a content director about Oct. 1. About a month later, she complained to the human resources chief and Nicolas Gonda, identified as head of Meow Wolf Entertainment, that “she was

being unfairly scrutinized in a way that a male colleague was not,” according to the suit. She was informed at the meeting that she was “too assertive.”

On Nov. 16, she was told that there had been an investigation and that there was “no ‘path forward’ for her at Meow Wolf,” the suit states. Maciuszek was terminated and not given a reason, the complaint says.

The suit alleges “a pattern and practice of subjecting female employees to different compensation, terms, conditions, and/or privileges of employment than their male colleagues.” It seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages for discrimination, violation of the New Mexico Human Rights Act and other counts.

Meow Wolf runs the successful House of Eternal Return interactive arts installation in Santa Fe and is expanding to branches in Las Vegas, Nev., Denver, Phoenix and Washington, D.C.