Alaska's temporary AG interrogates Anchorage school leaders. He has a giant conflict of interest
Texas politician Stephen Cox, installed as temporary attorney general by Mike Dunleavy, has again demonstrated why he should not be confirmed by the Alaska Legislature in 2026.
Cox and Education Commissioner Deena Bishop have combined forces on a foolish letter misrepresenting the case of the disclaimer applied to the Hillsdale College booklets distributed to Anchorage students.
The clueless Cox seems to think the booklets contained nothing but the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution.
But the booklets also contain a heavy dose of Hillsdale College political propaganda, which was more than enough reason for them to be distributed to students with the boilerplate disclaimer: “The Anchorage School District does not endorse these materials or the viewpoint expressed in them.”
At first Cox suggested that members of the Anchorage School Board violated their oaths of office with the disclaimer, a reckless charge for which there is no justification.
General Cox and Bishop followed that up with a letter suggesting that students are being taught to disrespect the declaration and the Constitution by the school district.
A competent attorney general and a competent education commissioner would have first checked out the contents of the booklet and read the Hillsdale propaganda and advertising packaged with the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution.
A competent attorney general would also recognize a conflict of interest. Cox has a giant one. He is a co-founder of the Thomas More Classical School in Anchorage, “with help and support from Hillsdale College and its Hillsdale College K-12 Education Office.”
Cox is the former board president of the school and currently is the treasurer, according to its website. The school is getting training from Hillsdale and plans to offer the Hillsdale curriculum.
In a fund-raising pitch last year, the school said, “If you believe in the power of classical education to transform lives—or if you simply want to support the Cox family in this God-led endeavor—your contribution can make a lasting impact.”
Cox shouldn’t be involved with anything in his state job that deals with Hillsdale College.
This controversy was created and inflamed by Must Read Alaska through an article by 2025 Hillsdale graduate Natalie Spaulding that began with this stretcher: “What does it mean when a government-funded institution refuses to endorse our country’s Supreme Law of the Land and the documents forming the basis of our national identity?”
Spaulding, who called the disclaimer “anti-American,” is the daughter of Sarah Spaulding, who was hired by Cox and the Thomas More Classical School to serve as headmaster.
When Sarah Spaulding was hired this past summer, Must Read Alaska quoted the soon-to-be Attorney General Cox as saying, “Sarah’s arrival comes at a remarkable moment. Across Alaska, a quiet restoration in the classical model is gaining momentum.”
Sarah Spaulding was the founding principal of a Hillsdale-backed school in Columbus, Ohio and a founding faculty member of a Hillsdale-backed school in Toledo.
“We’re building more than just a school,” Cox said at the time. “We’re building a community rooted in truth, animated by faith, and committed to excellence. Our mission is to cultivate young scholars in wisdom and virtue—ensuring Alaska’s future leaders are grounded in the classical tradition and the Christian faith. As Alaska’s classical renewal continues to unfold, Thomas More Classical School—and Sarah Spaulding—stand ready to lead.”
So far in his brief tenure as attorney general, Cox has exaggerated his ties to
Alaska, signed onto nearly four dozen amicus briefs—most dealing with issues that have little or no relevance to Alaska—and shown a marked preference for engaging in partisan politics.
That’s what he is doing here.
General Cox and Bishop asked for the school district to respond to their interrogation within 14 days. None of their questions deserve an answer until the temporary AG and the education commissioner read what they are complaining about.
To review the facts:
Hillsdale College wasn’t just supplying the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. It included its political spin and advertising.
“In recent decades, the way our government operates has departed from the Constitution,” Hillsdale College President Larry Arnn lectured Anchorage students in his introduction to the declaration and Constitution.
He said government “has become less limited, and our liberties less secure. At the same time true civic education in America—education in the Constitution—has largely died out.”
Arnn, who is on the board of the Heritage Foundation, went on to tell Anchorage students about Hillsdale College as the place to learn about the founding of our nation.
Make no mistake, the Hillsdale interpretation of the Constitution promotes a particular right-wing point of view.
Under his leadership, Hillsdale’s ‘fund-raising strategy is predicated on stoking outrage, with communiqués warning of “Marxist-inspired critical race theory” and an “emerging corporate-socialist totalitarianism,” the New York Times reported.
Arnn, who has ridiculed public school teachers and repeated Trump’s lies about the 2020 elections, is entitled to his opinions. But his views on the Constitution and how to teach it shouldn’t be passed off as nonpartisan.
Arnn believes that constitutional government has almost been overtaken by the administrative state. “The worst evils stem from it,” Arnn claims.
In the Hillsdale course outline about the Constitution promoted in the booklet, the college attacks the New Deal and claims that in the U.S., “an elite and insular administrative class rules without the consent of American citizens.”
“Moreover, administrative rule is both anti-constitutional and pre-constitutional, because it replaces the rule of law with unaccountable regulatory agencies,” according to the Hillsdale course promoted in the booklet.
The publication is a promotional tool for Hillsdale, which says it distributed 3 million copies in 2022 alone.
General Cox and Commissioner Bishop should have put a disclaimer on their letter, admitting that they failed to read the booklet and that Cox has a classical conflict of interest.
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