Churchill was born in Urbana, Illinois to Jack LeRoy Churchill and Maralyn Lucretia Allen. His parents divorced before he was two, and he grew up in Elmwood, where he attended local schools.

In 1966, he was drafted into the United States Army. On his 1980 resume, he said he served as a public-information specialist who "wrote and edited the battalion newsletter and wrote news releases."

In a 1987 profile on Churchill, the Denver Post reported that he was drafted, went to paratrooper school, then volunteered for Vietnam, where he served a 10-month tour as Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol (LRRP), one of a six-man team sent out to track down the enemy. The Post article also reported that Churchill was politically radicalized as a result of his experiences in Vietnam. Churchill told the Post that he had spent some time at the Chicago office of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) in the late 1960s, and briefly taught members of the Weather Underground how to build bombs and fire weapons.

In 2005, the Denver Post reported that Churchill's military records show he was trained as a projectionist and light truck driver, but they do not reflect paratrooper school or LRRP training. The 75th Ranger Regiment Association found no record of Churchill having been a member of a LRRP team.

Churchill received his B.A. in technological communications in 1974 and M.A. in communications theory in 1975, both from Sangamon State University, now the University of Illinois at Springfield.

In 1978, Churchill began working at the University of Colorado at Boulder as an affirmative action officer in the university administration. He also lectured on American Indian issues in the ethnic studies program. In 1990, the University of Colorado hired him as an associate professor, although he did not possess the academic doctorate usually required for the position. The following year he was granted tenure in the Communications department, without the usual six-year probationary period, after having been declined by the Sociology and Political Science departments.

In 1992, Alfred University awarded him an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters after giving a lecture about American Indian history. In 1996, Churchill moved to the new Ethnic Studies Department of the University of Colorado. In 1997, he was promoted to full professor. He was selected as chair of the department in June 2002.

In January 2005, during the controversy over his 9/11 remarks, Churchill resigned as chairman of the ethnic studies department at the University of Colorado ... his term as chair was scheduled to expire in June of that year. On May 16, 2006, the Investigative Committee of the Standing Committee on Research Misconduct at the University of Colorado concluded that Churchill had committed multiple counts of academic misconduct, specifically plagiarism, fabrication, and falsification. On July 24, 2007, Churchill was fired for academic misconduct in an eight to one vote by the University of Colorado's Board of Regents.

In 2003, Churchill stated, "I am myself of Muscogee and Creek descent on my father's side, Cherokee on my mother's, and am an enrolled member of the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians." In 1992, Churchill wrote elsewhere that he is one-eighth Creek and one-sixteenth Cherokee.In 1993, Churchill told the Colorado Daily that, "he was one-sixteenth Creek and Cherokee." Churchill told the Denver Post in February 2005 that he is three-sixteenths Cherokee.

In a statement dated May 9, 2005, and posted on its website, the United Keetoowah Band initially said, "The United Keetoowah Band would like to make it clear that Mr. Churchill IS NOT a member of the Keetoowah Band and was only given an honorary 'associate membership' in the early 1990s because he could not prove any Cherokee ancestry." The tribe said that all of Churchill's "past, present and future claims or assertions of Keetoowah 'enrollment,' written or spoken, including but not limited to; biographies, curriculum vitae, lectures, applications for employment, or any other reference not listed herein, are deemed fraudulent by the United Keetoowah Band."

In an abrupt change of tone two days later, the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians removed its critical statement regarding Churchill and replaced it with one that acknowledged his "alleged ancestry" of being Cherokee. "Because Mr. Churchill had genealogical information regarding his alleged ancestry, and his willingness to assist the UKB in promoting the tribe and its causes, he was awarded an 'Associate Membership' as an honor," the tribe's website now said. "However, Mr. Churchill may possess eligibility status for Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, since he claims 1/16 Cherokee." The tribe's spokesperson, Lisa Stopp, stated the tribe enrolls only members with certified one-quarter American Indian blood. The website statement further clarified that Churchill "was not eligible for tribal membership due to the fact that he does not possess a 'Certificate of Degree of Indian Blood (CDIB)", and the associate membership did not entitle an individual to voting rights or enrollment in the tribe. Churchill has never asked for CDIB certification, and finds the idea of being "vetted" by the US government offensive.

In June 1994, the tribe voted to stop awarding associate memberships. Such honorary associate membership recognizes an individual's assistance to the tribe, but it has nothing to do with Indian ancestry, and it does not entitle an individual to vote in the tribe as a member. The Keetoowah Band states that Churchill still holds the associate membership and it has not been rescinded. In a separate interview, Ernestine Berry, formerly on the tribe's enrollment committee and four years on its council, said that Churchill had never fulfilled a promise to help the tribe.

In June 2005, the Rocky Mountain News published an article about Churchill's genealogy and family history. It "turned up no evidence of a single Indian ancestor" and identified 142 direct ancestors [of Churchill's] from records. The News reported that both Churchill's birth parents were listed as white on the 1930 census, as were all but two of his great-great-grandparents listed on previous census and other official documents. The News found that some of Churchill's accounts of where his ancestors had lived did not agree with documented records. Numerous members of Churchill's extended family have longstanding family legends of Indian ancestry among ancestors.

Documents in Churchill's university personnel file show that he was granted tenure in a "special opportunity position." Such positions were later described as a program designed to help "recruit and hire a more diverse faculty." In 1994, then CU-Boulder Chancellor James Corbridge refused to take action on allegations that Churchill was fraudulently claiming to be an Indian, saying "it has always been university policy that a person's race or ethnicity is self-proving."

Some of Churchill's critics, such as Vernon Bellecourt and Suzan Shown Harjo, argue that his assertion of Native American ancestry without the ability to prove it might constitute misrepresentation and grounds for termination. The University has stated in response that they do not hire on the basis of ethnicity.The University of Colorado's Research Misconduct Committee conducted a preliminary investigation into whether Churchill misrepresented his ethnicity to "add credibility and public acceptance to his scholarship." The committee concluded that the allegation was not "appropriate for further investigation under the definition of research misconduct."

In an interview in The Rocky Mountain News, Churchill stated: "I have never been confirmed as having one-quarter blood, and never said I was. And even if [the critics] are absolutely right, what does that have to do with this issue? I have never claimed to be goddamned Sitting Bull".

Blood Quantum

Churchill has responded to requests for verification of his Indian heritage in various ways, including attacking the bloodline percentages upon which some Native American tribes establish their membership requirements. Churchill argues that the United States instituted "blood quantum" laws based upon rules of descendancy in order to further goals of personal enrichment and political expediency. Churchill previously explained his beliefs to oral historian David Barsamian:

For decades in his writings, he has further argued that blood quantum laws have an inherent genocidal purpose:Churchill's assertions have been raised as one of the several research-misconduct allegations that have been brought against him, and he has been denounced for using his interpretation of the Dawes Act to attack tribal governments that would not recognize him as a member.

Churchill has written on American Indian history and culture, and is particularly outspoken about what he describes as the genocide inflicted on the indigenous people of North America by European settlers and the repression of native peoples that continues to this day.

Churchill has written or coauthored 14 books and more than 150 published essays. He describes 50 of those essays as "scholarly", of which 27 are refereed.

According to the University of Colorado investigation, which the jury in Churchill's lawsuit against CU apparently chose to accord little weight, "His academic publications are nearly all works of synthesis and reinterpretation, drawing upon studies by other scholars, not monographs describing new research based on primary sources." The investigation also noted that "he has decided to publish largely in alternative presses or journals, not in the university presses or mainstream peer-reviewed journals often favored by more conventional academics." In addition to his academic writing, Churchill has written for several general readership magazines of political opinion.

In 1986, Churchill wrote an essay titled Notes on an American Pseudopraxis criticizing pacifist politics within the U.S. left as being hypocritical, de facto racist and ineffectual. In 1998, Arbeiter Ring Publishing published the essay in a book entitled Pacifism as Pathology: Reflections on the Role of Armed Struggle in North America and listing Ward Churchill as the author. The book included a preface by Ed Mead, a new introduction to the essay by Churchill and a commentary by Mike Ryan. The book sparked much debate in leftist circles and inspired more aggressive tactics within the anti-globalization movement in the following few years.

Agents of Repression (1988), co-authored by Jim Vander Wall, describes what the authors claim was the secret war against the Black Panther Party and American Indian Movement carried out during the late 1960s and '70s by the FBI under the COINTELPRO program. The COINTELPRO Papers (1990; reissued 2002), also co-authored with Jim Vander Wall, examines a series of original FBI memos that detail the Bureau's activities against various leftist groups, from the U.S. Communist Party in the 1950s to activists concerned with Central American issues in the 1980s.

In Fantasies of the Master Race (1992), Churchill examines the portrayal of American Indians and the use of American Indian symbols in popular American culture. He focuses on such phenomena as Tony Hillerman's mystery novels, the film Dances with Wolves, and the New Age movement, finding examples of cultural imperialism and exploitation. Churchill calls author Carlos Castaneda's claims of revealing the teachings of a Yaqui Indian shaman, the "greatest hoax since Piltdown Man."

Struggle for the Land (1993; reissued 2002) is a collection of essays in which Churchill chronicles the U.S. government's systematic exploitation of Native lands and the killing or displacement of American Indians. He details Native American efforts in the 19th and 20th centuries to prevent defoliation and industrial practices such as surface mining.Churchill's Indians Are Us? (1994), a sequel to Fantasies of the Master Race, further explores American Indian issues in popular culture and politics. He examines the movie Black Robe, the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation killings, the prosecution of Leonard Peltier, sports mascots, the Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990, and blood quantum laws, calling them tools of genocide. Churchill is particularly outspoken about New Age exploitations of shamanism and American Indian sacred traditions, and the "do-it-yourself Indianism" of certain contemporary authors. John P. LaVelle of the University of New Mexico School of Law published a review of Indians Are Us? in The American Indian Quarterly. Professor LaVelle, an enrolled member of the Santee Sioux Nation, states that Indians Are Us? twists historical facts and is hostile toward Indian tribes.

Selected Essays on Indigenism, 1985-1995 (1996) is a collection of 23 previously published essays on Native American history, culture, and political activism.

Churchill's A Little Matter of Genocide (1997) is a survey of ethnic cleansing from 1492 to the present. He compares the treatment of North American Indians to historical instances of genocide by communists in Cambodia, Turks against Armenians, and Europeans against the Gypsies, as well as Nazis against the Poles and Jews.

In Perversions of Justice (2002), Churchill argues that the U.S.'s legal system was adapted to gain control over Native American people. Tracing the evolution of federal Indian law, Churchill argues that the principles set forth were not only applied to non-Indians in the U.S., but later adapted for application abroad. He concludes that this demonstrates the development of the U.S.'s "imperial logic," which depends on a "corrupt form of legalism" to establish colonial control and empire.

Churchill's controversial essay on 9/11 was expanded into a book-length manuscript, published as Reflections on the Consequences of U.S. Imperial Arrogance and Criminality (2003) by AK Press. The book features two other chapters, one listing US military interventions, another listing what Churchill believes to be US violations of international law. The original essay takes the "roosting chickens" of the title from a 1963 Malcolm X speech, in which Malcolm X linked the assassination of U.S. president John F. Kennedy to the violence which Kennedy perpetuated as "merely a case of chickens coming home to roost." Churchill's essays in this book address the worldwide forms of resistance that he posits were and continue to be provoked by U.S. imperialism of the 20th and 21st centuries.

In The Genocidal Impact of American Indian Residential Schools (2004), Churchill traces the history of removing American Indian children from their homes to residential schools (in Canada) or Indian boarding schools (in the USA) as part of government policies (1880s-1980s) which he regards as genocidal.

Churchill has been active since at least 1984 as the co-director of the Denver-based American Indian Movement of Colorado, an autonomous chapter of the American Indian Movement. In 1993, he and other local AIM leaders, including Russell Means, Glenn T. Morris, Robert Robideau, and David Hill, broke with the national AIM leadership, including Dennis Banks and brothers Vernon and Clyde Bellecourt, claiming that all AIM chapters are autonomous. The schism arose when Means, Churchill, Glenn T. Morris and others openly supported the Miskito Indian group Misurasata that was fighting with the CIA-backed Contras.

The schism continued, with the national AIM leadership claiming that the local AIM leaders, such as Churchill, are tools of the U.S. government used against other American Indians. The leaders of the national AIM organization claim that Churchill has worked in the past as an underground counter-intelligence source for the U.S. government, for example the FBI, and local, non-Indian, police forces, to subvert the national AIM organization. They cite several examples. Specifically, they refer to a 1993 Boulder, Colorado interview with Jodi Rave, a former columnist for the Denver Post, in which Churchill stated that he "was teaching the Rapid City Police Department about the American Indian Movement." After Churchill's split with the national American Indian Movement, its leadership accused Churchill of having 'fraudulently represented himself as an Indian' to bolster his credentials.

Churchill has been a leader of Colorado AIM's annual protests in Denver against the Columbus Day holiday and its associated parade. These protests have brought Colorado AIM's leadership into conflict with some leaders in the Denver Italian American community, the main supporters of the parade. Churchill and others have been arrested for acts such as blocking the parade. As early as 2004, Churchill had claimed that such parades are unconstitutional, arguing that the Ninth Amendment to the Constitution provides Native Americans with a right not to be subjected to such displays, overriding the First Amendment rights of non-native Americans.

In April 1983, Churchill traveled to Tripoli and Benghazi as a representative of AIM and the International Indian Treaty Council to meet Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi of Libya while a U.S. travel ban to that country was in place. The visit was intended to seek support from Gaddafi regarding claims of the U.S. government's violation of treaties with American Indian nations.

Churchill wrote an essay in September 2001 entitled On the Justice of Roosting Chickens. In it, he argued that the September 11, 2001 attacks were provoked by U.S. foreign policy. Further, he disputed the innocence of those working in the World Trade Center, comparing the role of financial workers in "ongoing genocidal American imperialism" to the role played by Adolf Eichmann in organizing the Holocaust.

In 2005, this essay was widely publicized when Hamilton College invited Churchill to speak. This led to both condemnations of Churchill and counter-accusations of McCarthyism by Churchill and supporters. Following the controversy, the University of Colorado interim Chancellor Phil DiStefano stated, "While Professor Churchill has the constitutional right to express his political views, his essay on 9/11 has outraged and appalled us and the general public."

A documentary called Stories from the Edge of Free Speech, broadcast on HBO, prominently features Churchill's case in addressing the issues of free speech and 1st Amendment rights.

The jury in Churchill's suit for reinstatement weighed the university's claims of academic misconduct per jury instructions it received in the case. As Stanley Fish described: "It was the jury’s task to determine whether Churchill’s dismissal would have occurred independently of the adverse political response to his constitutionally protected statements." The jury found that the alleged misconduct would not have led to Churchill's firing, rejecting the university's academic misconduct claim as the actual grounds for dismissal. The original controversy attracted increased attention to Churchill's research, which had already been criticized by legal scholar John LaVelle and historian Guenter Lewy. Additional critics came forward, including sociologist Thomas Brown, who had been preparing an article on Churchill's work, and historians R.G. Robertson and Russell Thornton, who claimed that Churchill had misrepresented their work. In 2005, University of Colorado at Boulder administrators ordered an investigation into seven allegations of research misconduct.

On May 16, 2006 the University released the findings of its Investigative Committee, which agreed unanimously that Churchill had engaged in "serious research misconduct", including falsification, fabrication and plagiarism. The committee was divided on the appropriate level of sanctions. The Standing Committee on Research Misconduct accepted the findings of the Investigative Committee that Churchill had "committed serious, repeated, and deliberate research misconduct", but also disagreed on what sanctions should be imposed. Churchill's appeal against his proposed dismissal was considered by a panel of the University's Privilege and Tenure Committee, which found that two of the seven findings of misconduct did not constitute dismissible offences. Three members recommended that the penalty should be demotion and one year's suspension without pay, while two favored dismissal.

On July 24, 2007, the University regents voted seven to two to uphold all seven of the findings of research misconduct, overruling the recommendation of Privilege and Tenure panel that two of them be dismissed. They then fired Churchill by a vote of eight to one.

On the following day, Churchill filed a lawsuit in state court claiming that the firing was retribution for expressing politically unpopular views. On April 1, 2009, a Colorado jury found that Churchill had been wrongly fired, but awarded only $1 in damages. As one of the jurors said later in a press interview, "it wasn't a slap in his face or anything like that when we didn't give him any money. It's just that [Churchill's attorney] David Lane kept saying this wasn't about the money, and in the end, we took his word for that."At the verdict, Churchill's counsel asked Chief Judge Larry J. Naves of Denver District Court to order reinstatement in light of the verdict.

On July 7, 2009, Judge Naves found that the defendantswere entitled to quasi-judicial immunity as a matter of law, vacated the jury verdict and determined that the University does not owe Churchill any financial compensation. Naves also denied Churchill's request for reinstatement at CU. Lane has already said he will appeal both decisions.

Churchill's subjects are often American Indian figures and other themes associated with Native American Culture, using historical photographs as source material for works.

There have been allegations that Churchill's pieces infringe copyrights. For example, his 1981 serigraph Winter Attack was, according to Churchill and others, based on a 1972 drawing by artist Thomas E. Mails. Churchill printed 150 copies of Winter Attack and sold at least one of them; other copies have been made available for purchase online. Churchill maintained that at the time he produced Winter Attack, he publicly acknowledged that it was based on Mails' work.The online journal Artnet mentions Churchill's artwork and the controversy surrounding its originality.

Books

• Re-released as
• Released in a revised and expanded edition as (One essay in this book has been accused of containing a plagiarized paragraph).
• Re-released as

Articles

• First published as "Crimes Against Humanity" in Also published under the titles "The Indian Chant and the Tomahawk Chop" and "Using Indian Names as Mascots Harms Native Americans".

Audio and video

• Doing Time: The Politics of Imprisonment, audio CD of a lecture, recorded at the Doing Time Conference at the University of Winnipeg, September 2000 (AK Press, 2001, ISBN 978-1-902593-47-0)
• Life In Occupied America (AK Press, 2003, ISBN 978-1-902593-72-2)
• In A Pig's Eye: Reflections on the Police State, Repression, and Native America (AK Press, 2002, ISBN 978-1-902593-50-0)
• US Off The Planet!: An Evening In Eugene With Ward Churchill And Chellis Glendinning, VHS video recorded July 17, 2001 (Cascadia Media Collective, 2002)
• Pacifism and Pathology in the American Left, 2003 audio CD recorded at a AK Press warehouse in Oakland (AK Press Audio)
• Z Mag Ward Churchill Audio August 10, 2003 and earlier
• Churchill Speaks About Academic Freedom - Free Speech Radio News February 9, 2005
• Ward Churchill Under Fire - Free Speech Radio News, February 3, 2005.
• The Justice of Roosting Chickens: Ward Churchill Speaks The Pacifica Network Show, Democracy Now! from February 18, 2005 features extended Audio/Video exclusive interview with Churchill.
• A Little Matter of Genocide: Linking U.S. Aggression Abroad to the Domestic Repression of Indigenous Peoples", recorded in North Battleford, Saskatchewan on March 19, 2005
• Debate with David Horowitz and Ward Churchill at George Washington University April 6, 2006
• Video and audio (excerpt)