The Education Department's Office for Civil Rights is investigating a complaint that the University of Virginia discriminates against white applicants for undergraduate admission, and has been asked to look into similar allegations involving North Carolina State University's undergraduate program, the University of Maryland at Baltimore's School of Medicine, and the law schools at the University of Virginia and the College of William and Mary. The investigation of Virginia's undergraduate policies is the office's first such examination of race-conscious college admissions since the U.S. Supreme Court's June 2003 rulings in two cases involving affirmative action at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. The Virginia complaint actually was filed in May 2003, one month before the Supreme Court rendered those decisions, but the civil-rights office did not notify the university that it was undertaking an investigation until early August 2003, after the court had ruled. The investigation was not made public until last week, when Kenneth L. Marcus, who oversees the civil-rights office, mentioned it in an interview with The Chronicle. Mr. Marcus said the Office for Civil Rights opened the investigation after evaluating the complaint and taking it seriously enough to seek information and a resolution from the university.