When a twit from NBC News showed a bizarre video of a high school wrestler, Andrew Johnson, of Buena Regional High in New Jersey, getting his hair cut on the mats, my first reaction was to wonder why he would let anyone do that to him. Then again, he’s not me, nor I him, so the question instead was what was he thinking.

A New Jersey referee who forced a high-school wrestler to cut his dreadlocks right before a match has been barred from further officiating pending an investigation into the incident, school district officials said Friday.

The unnamed Buena Regional High School student was told at a match Wednesday night that his hair and headgear were not compliant with regulation and would have to instantly cut his long locks or forfeit the round, according to a statement Friday from the Buena Regional School District.

What was unexplained was why the student, his coach and his parents, didn’t say no. That there were rules as to hair length in high school wrestling was neither surprising nor unexpected. There are tons of safety rules in contact sports for the obvious reason that something could be dangerous, even if highly unlikely, and someone decided there had to be a rule about it.

It could well be a dumb rule, but that didn’t make it any less of a rule.  Having lived through this with my own son as a fencer, which similarly has rules of all sorts that seem silly until the unexpected disaster strikes, this was banal stuff. Nobody wants to see a kid hurt for a sport.

“Regulations regarding hair length and legal hair covers for wrestlers are provided by the National Federation of State High School Associations,” the statement read. “At this point, the NJSIAA is working to determine the exact nature of the incident and whether an infraction occurred.”

But was this racist? The ACLU said so.

That was a astoundingly strong statement. Further evidence of racism offered was an allegation of a prior bad act by the ref.

Multiple news outlets, including Sports Illustrated and NJ.com, identified the clearly-visible referee in the video as Alan Maloney — who was also once accused of calling another referee a racial slur during a March, 2016 social gathering in an argument over home-made wine, according to the Courier-Post Journal of South Jersey.

There’s a check-in process, where a wrestler’s weight and compliance with the rules is determined, including whether the hair cover is adequate. Johnson went through it and was approved to wrestle. Yet, on the mat, the ref insisted that the cover was inadequate and demanded it be cut or he forfeit the match.

Jordan Burroughs, an Olympic gold medal wrestler, was outraged.

Burroughs, who won a gold medal in the 2012 Olympics, also criticized Buena parents and coaches for not intervening, and said referee Alan Maloney “needs to be held accountable”

“Let me tell you how sickening this is. I’ve been wrestling for 25 years, at every level, and I have never once seen a person required to cut their hair during a match,” Burroughs said on Twitter. “This is nonsense. As a referee, you are required to check the hair and nails of all wrestlers BEFORE a match. My opinion is that this was a combination of an abuse of power, racism, and just plain negligence.”

There is nothing to suggest that Maloney’s action was not racist, or at least without any hint of racism. But the reaction of many was like that of the New Jersey ACLU, not merely to assume racism, but outrageous flagrant racism, was the sole cause of what happened here. While Burroughs also saw racism as a factor, his view was far more tempered than the absolute outrage of the ACLU with its hyperbolic and factually baseless “no-loc ban.”

I questioned whether this was racism or just the rules,* whether it was a proper or improper application. Having lived through the joys of high school sports with my fencing son, I had seen more than my share of refs on strips making dubious rules applications to athletes. Like wrestling, fencing tournaments have check-ins, but each strip ref still checked again, still applied the rules and, often, applied them more severely than at the check-in. Fortunately, cutting hair was never one of the issues for a fencer.

But in reaction, someone made a point about my “default.”

Weird that your default is to defend the guy with multiple complaints

Putting aside that I didn’t defend the guy, although it’s understandable why that would be the simplistic extrapolation of not attacking the guy, the stupid comment raised a less stupid question, should there be a default of taking sides without regard to critical thought?

My “default” is to go wherever the facts and logic take me. While there is nothing about the facts here, as far as they’re known and assuming them to be accurate, that precludes racism in whole or part, the facts aren’t sufficient to conclude that this was clearly racist. My default is to presume innocent, whether of a crime or, as here, racism, in the absence of sufficient evidence. Notably, his “prior bad act” evidence of an allegation of using a racial slur years earlier didn’t do the trick for me as it apparently did for others.

When a KID is required to cut his hair before a match, my default is to sympathize with the kid. Conservative politics is to default to being a dick

— Charlie Rosenov (@cacisor) December 22, 2018

One can certainly feel badly for Johnson, a high schooler who was forced to cut his hair. Why no one raised this at the time, him, his family, his coach, is troubling, but without more information, it’s impossible to know their motivations. I feel badly for the kid too, but feeling badly for the kid has nothing to do with whether the ref was racist.

And, unsurprisingly, the secondary “default” was that my not siding with the certainty that this was racism made me, by default, a conservative and, by default, to “being a dick.” There is no middle ground in the world of the woke.

Defaults matter, and what struck me was that this is the progressive version of the default that all accused defendants are presumed guilty. Tribal assumptions, that everything is racist or sexist, that every accused male is a rapist, that every negative interaction between a white person and black person is racist, is racist.

It may be so. It may not. It all depends on the facts, and just as we may presume the accused in a criminal case to be innocent until proven guilty, we should presume the same when it comes to accusations of the evils of racism and sexism. It’s not defending Maloney, or worse, defending racism, to question whether the rush to judgment in the absence of proof is sufficient. But is this battle worth fighting anymore?

*As my twit generated outrage among the woke, I expect this post to do the same. After all, if you’re not on the side of good, then you must be on the side of evil.