THE NUMBERS NOBODY WANTED TO SEE

488.

That is how many autism-related Americans with Disabilities Act charges the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission received in fiscal year 2023. Ten years earlier – fiscal 2013 – that number was 53. Twenty years earlier, in 2003, it was 14.

I am one data point somewhere in that curve, though I never filed. I just left.

The jump is not because autism suddenly became common. It has always been common. The jump is because a generation finally showed up expecting the law to mean what it says, and discovering it mostly does not.

488 charges in a single fiscal year is not a spike. It is the system catching up to decades of people who tried to make it work, were told they were not team players, and were managed out before they could become a problem. Gen Z walked in with ADA rights framed as exactly that – rights, not favors – and when the accommodation became the reason for the performance improvement plan, they filed.

The EEOC data does not break down outcomes, but separate reporting shows what happens after the charge is filed. Employers deny the accommodation was ever denied. Employees are told the issue was performance, not disability. Settlements include non-disclosure agreements, so nobody else learns what the company actually did or how much it cost them to make it go away.

Between 2018 and 2024, the EEOC filed at least 12 ADA cases alleging discrimination against workers with neurodiverse conditions. The allegations: employers denied accommodations, terminated employees, or rescinded job offers based on diagnoses. That is 12 that rose to the level of federal enforcement action. It does not count the thousands of charges that settled quietly, or the ones that were dismissed, or the ones that were never filed because the person just walked away.

I worked in corporate and government IT and information security. I was also autistic the entire time, and that was fine as long as nobody knew and I kept performing. The day I could not keep performing – because masking is unsustainable, because autistic burnout is real, because eventually you run out – the conversation shifted from "what do you need" to "we are concerned about your fit."

I never filed a charge. I left. I have been leaving my entire career. Most of us have.

The 488 number is what happens when one generation stops leaving.

The EEOC research notes that the spike correlates with greater awareness, especially among Gen Z workers, of neurodivergent conditions. That is true, but incomplete. The awareness is not just that autism and ADHD exist. It is that requesting an accommodation is a legal right, not a personal favor, and that rescinding a job offer or initiating a performance plan immediately after disclosure is not a coincidence – it is evidence.

Older workers – my generation and the one before – were told to be grateful we had jobs at all. Gen Z was told they have rights, and they believe it, and they are willing to test whether the legal system agrees. The answer, 488 times in one fiscal year, was "file the charge and we will see."

That does not mean 488 wins. It means 488 attempts. Many will be dismissed. Many will settle for an amount that does not cover what the person lost. A few will go to litigation, and those will set precedent, and the cycle will continue.

The part that does not show up in the EEOC data is how many people are still leaving without filing. For every one of the 488, there are others who decided the fight was not worth it, or who did not know filing was an option, or who could not afford to be unemployed long enough to see it through. The 488 is a floor, not a ceiling.

I know what that calculation looks like. I made it more than once. The job that requires masking every interaction, the manager who sees any mention of accommodation as a red flag, the HR process that turns a request for written instructions into a six-month documentation trail proving you are not a culture fit – you can fight that, or you can find something else. Most of us find something else.

The 488 number is what changes when people stop finding something else and start filing instead.

The EEOC does not publish what happens after the charge. It does not say how many of the 488 resulted in reinstatement, back pay, policy changes, or nothing. It does not say how many were resolved in the employee's favor versus how many were dismissed or withdrawn. But the number itself – 488 in a single fiscal year, up from 53 a decade earlier – is the part that matters, because it is the part that tells employers the cost of discrimination is no longer just losing the employee quietly.

It tells them someone might actually file.

That is not justice. It is the beginning of accountability, and those are not the same thing. Justice would be a system where the accommodation is provided without the charge being necessary. Accountability is a system where filing the charge is no longer rare enough to be safely ignored.

488 is still rare. It is a rounding error in the number of autistic adults in the workforce. But it is not 53, and it is not 14, and the direction of the curve is the only part of this that matters.

I left, because leaving was easier than fighting, and because I did not believe the system would actually enforce the law it was supposed to enforce. A lot of us made that same calculation.

The 488 are the ones who stopped making it.

Source: U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission data via Bloomberg Law and Ogletree Deakins. 488 autism-related ADA charges filed in FY2023, compared to 53 in FY2013 and 14 in FY2003. Between 2018–2024, EEOC filed at least 12 ADA cases alleging discrimination against workers with neurodiverse conditions.