Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) hijacker Leila Khaled. Photo: Sebastian Baryli via Wikimedia Commons.

A California university whose recent seminar with a notorious Palestinian terrorist was kicked off the Zoom platform is now under federal investigation.

The US Department of Education is reviewing concerns that San Francisco State University broke federal rules by attempting to host the event with hijacker Leila Khaled, the New York Post reported on Friday.

The Sept. 23 event, “Whose Narratives? Gender, Justice, & Resistance: A conversation with Leila Khaled,” was scheduled to take place via Zoom. It was to be hosted by SFSU professors Rabab Abdulhadi, who has a history of anti-Israel activism, and Tomomi Kinukawa.

Khaled played a critical role in two airplane hijackings in 1969 and 1970 as a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a US-designated terrorist organization. The Israeli Shin Bet intelligence agency considers Khaled as part of the present Jordanian command of the PFLP.

According to the Post, in an Oct. 8 letter responding to the Lawfare Project, a pro-Israel advocacy group that highlighted Khaled’s attempted lecture on Zoom, US Education Department official Reed Rubinstein acknowledged that “SFSU’s conduct concerning Leila Khaled and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine may be subject to the Department of the Treasury’s sanctions authorities.”

The Education Department will evaluate concerns that SFSU’s webinar violated civil rights rules and the conditions of federal grants the university received, Rubinstein wrote.

A formal investigation could lead to a reduction in the university’s federal funding as well as possible fines or criminal charges, Brooke Goldstein of the Lawfare Project told the Post.