Did you read the article?
Yes, of course.
Here is where Hentoff displays a complete lack of understanding of this part of the First Amendment: “Like Jefferson and Madison, I strongly believe in separation of church and state. And if a principal were to mandate school-directed prayer in classrooms, then that would be a violation of that separation.”
Neither Madison nor Hamilton held such a view, nor was such a view part of the Constitution. At the time of ratification, many states had established churches, and the entire point of the Federal Constitution’s “Establishment Clause” was to keep the federal government out of the religious affairs and settlements of the states. If the First Amendment had been understood in the anachronistic way that Hentoff takes for granted, the Constitution would NEVER have been ratified. BTW, when Jefferson was in charge of the D.C. schools, he used the Bible and Watts’ Hymnal as textbooks.