DEI (racial and other quotas) is intrinsically evil. At The Hill, Matt Cole and Chris Nicholson reveal a shocking, practical downside to DEI hysteria: βDEI killed the CHIPS Act.β
The issue is critical because Taiwan now produces 90% of the worldβs advanced microchips, and China has indicated its intention to annex Taiwan in the near future. So the CHIPS Act sought to incentivize chip production in the U.S. Unfortunately, that isnβt what is happening.
Handouts abound. Thereβs plenty for the leftβrequirements that chipmakers submit detailed plans to educate, employ, and train lots of women and people of color, as well as βjustice-involved individuals,β more commonly known as ex-cons. Thereβs plenty for the rightβveterans and members of rural communities find their way into the typical DEI definition of minorities. β¦
***
Because equity is so critical, the makers of humanityβs most complex technology must rely on local labor and apprentices from all those underrepresented groups, as [the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company] discovered to its dismay.Tired of delays at its first fab, the company flew in 500 employees from Taiwan. This angered local workers, since the implication was that they werenβt skilled enough. With CHIPS grants at risk, TSMC caved in December, agreeing to rely on those workers and invest more in training them. A month later, it postponed its second Arizona fab.
Now TSMC has revealed plans to build a second fab in Japan. Its first, which broke ground in 2021, is about to begin production. TSMC has learned that when the Japanese promise money, they actually give it, and they allow it to use competent workers. TSMC is also sampling Germanyβs chip subsidies, as is Intel.
It isnβt only TSMC that is being stymied by DEI:
Intel is also building fabs in Poland and Israel, which means it would rather risk Russian aggression and Hamas rockets over dealing with Americaβs DEI regime. Samsung is pivoting toward making its South Korean homeland the semiconductor superpower after Taiwan falls.
In short, the worldβs best chipmakers are tired of being pawns in the CHIPS Actβs political games. Theyβve quietly given up on America. β¦
[C]hipmakers have to make sure they hire plenty of female construction workers, even though less than 10 percent of U.S. construction workers are women. They also have to ensure childcare for the female construction workers and engineers who donβt exist yet. They have to remove degree requirements and set βdiverse hiring slate policies,β which sounds like code for quotas. They must create plans to do all this with βclose and ongoing coordination with on-the-ground stakeholders.β
No wonder Intel politely postponed its Columbus fab and started planning one in Ireland.
Access to microchips is a national security issue, as well as being fundamental to a modern economy. And yet Congressional majorities care more about DEI shibboleths and feeding pork to their constituencies than about American security and prosperity. Of course, that isnβt really an irony. The whole point of DEI is hating America, and if it imperils our security and our prosperity, so much the better.