Ward LeRoy Churchill, born on October 2, 1947, in Urbana, Illinois, was an American professor, writer, and political activist. After being drafted into the United States Army in 1966 and serving during the Vietnam War, he earned a B.A. in communication in 1974 and a master’s degree in communication studies in 1975 from the University of Illinois at Springfield. Churchill began his career at the University of Colorado in Boulder as an employee in the affirmative-action program, later receiving a teaching assignment in Indigenous studies and becoming an Associate Professor in Ethnic Studies in 1990. His academic career became highly controversial after the 2005 debate over his essay "Some People Push Back" and the book On the Justice of Roosting Chickens, in which he referred to World Trade Center employees as “Little Eichmanns.” His academic career ended in 2007 following investigations into seven allegations of academic misconduct, including falsification and plagiarism. Churchill also produced spoken word recordings, including Government Repression of the American Indian Movement (1991) and Native America: A Little Matter of Genocide (1998).
