Donald Trump’s candidacy for president has triggered a cascade of bigotry: first against Mexicans, then against women, and lately, in the wake of the attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, against Muslims. Trump continuously defends his outlandish statements, responding to criticism with different iterations of “I’m so tired of this politically correct crap” — suggesting, in other words, that the problem is not his overt racism, but an intolerant society of overly sensitive liberals who violate his freedom of speech.

Trump’s recent call to ban Muslims from entering the United States enraged Democrats and Republicans, and even elicited criticism from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. But Trump is relentless in his bigotry, and has declared a war on political correctness, using his presidential campaign as its first offensive.

His war is escalating, nearly unabated; although his hateful slurs are despicable, they’re perfectly legal in the U.S. A nearly all-encompassing defense of speech, enshrined in the First Amendment, is a cornerstone of the American legal system. The amendment serves as a check on government overreach, allowing citizens to freely criticize those in power without fear of repercussion. That promotes a culture of debate, characterized by protest and disagreement. Long-serving Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black, an ardent defender of the First Amendment, famously described its protection against exceptions to the rule, saying that “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech” means “no law.”

But that system is not universally revered. It has obvious costs: Tolerating bigoted speech means that people — particularly the marginalized — often get hurt. The alternative means taking punitive measures. Earlier this year, brothers at the University of Oklahoma fraternity Sigma Alpha Epsilon were filmed chanting, “There will never be a nigger [at] SAE, you can hang him from a tree.” Two of them were subsequently expelled — the rest were disciplined and the fraternity was closed — prompting outcry from lawyers who argued that, as a public institution, the university had violated the First Amendment.

But for many, the students’ reference to lynching was a chilling echo of a dark past, and should be rejected. After the incident, Kent Greenfield, a professor at Boston College Law School, wrote that embracing the right to chant racist slogans is a “bloated” and “ham-fisted” interpretation of the First Amendment that should compel us to rethink its meaning.

The students’ expulsion may have sent that message, and was generally popular among students. Still, opponents cited numerous court rulings that disallow universities from disciplining students based on speech. It later came to light that the students had learned the racist chant years prior at a national fraternity event; an investigation showed that it had been an institutionalized part of fraternity culture for the last 50 years. At the time, some argued that the expulsions offered a swift way to postpone addressing deeper issues of racism on campus.

In other countries, the Oklahoma expulsion would have been a no-brainer, and Trump’s hate speech would certainly not fly. France is a good example. When National Front politician Anne-Sophie Leclère compared Justice Minister Christiane Taubira, a black woman, to a chimpanzee, she received a nine-month prison term and a 50,000 euro fine. The penalty is currently under review, but the mere fact that she was tried for her racist remarks — and handed a clearly disproportionate sentence — is indicative of France’s interventionist free-speech regime.