Meow Wolf Faces New Discrimination Complaint

With news of Vince Kadlubek stepping down as Meow Wolf CEO still fresh, the growing arts corporation is facing yet another discrimination complaint; this time from an employee in Denver, where a new installation is slated for a 2021 opening.

Denver alt-weekly Westword reports today that artist-activist and Acting Director of Community Engagement Zoë Williams, who began work for the company in 2018, filed the complaint with the New Mexico Department of Workforce Solutions in August, and excerpts from the report show Williams alleges women and nonbinary employees face more stringent requirements than their cis male counterparts. In the complaint, Williams says that they were "directed to change the evaluations of male employees to make them more favorable so that they can obtain raises and have been forbidden from disciplining these same employees for not completing their work."

Also according to the complaint, Williams, who identifies as nonbinary, has become a pariah at work, including being prohibited from joining certain diversity committees and not being looped into inter-company emails that include employees at similar levels.

In an email to SFR, Williams' attorney Holly Agajanian says Williams has joined a lawsuit filed last July by former employees Tara Khozein and Gina Maciuszek, but Agajanian did not comment further. The motion seeking to declare the case a class action is still pending while Kadlubek and others have filed motions to be removed as defendants. In September, Meow Wolf was ordered by the City of Santa Fe to pay over $17,000 in lost wages to a former employee after he alleged a pattern of wage theft beginning in 2016.

A spokesperson for Meow Wolf says they do not have a comment at this time. SFR requested a comment from Williams and will update this story with any further information.