HONOLULU, Hawaii (AP) -- The University of Hawaii's policy to give some Native Hawaiian students tuition waivers or discounts is being investigated by the U.S. Education Department's Office of Civil Rights, a spokesman said Wednesday.

The investigation is based on a complaint attorney John Goemans said he filed nearly two years ago, charging that tuition waivers for Native Hawaiians amounts to racial discrimination. In 2000, Goemans won a U.S. Supreme Court case challenging a Hawaiians-only voting law.

Spokesman Carlin Hertz in the Office of Civil Rights' Washington office confirmed "an ongoing investigation against the University of Hawaii."

"It involves a complaint about a violation under Title VI about discrimination based on race," he said.

Title VI was enacted as part of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, and national origin in programs and activities receiving federal financial assistance.

The investigation was first reported on The Chronicle of Higher Education's Web site. It reported similar probes of Pepperdine University, Seton Hall University, Virginia Tech, Washington University in St. Louis and the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction.

When the complaint was first filed, the University of Hawaii said tuition waivers to Native Hawaiians were based either on financial need or merit -- not on ethnicity.

The university's Web site this week, however, includes information on a tuition waiver scholarship for 20 Native Hawaiian students that lists as a top condition that the candidate "be of Native Hawaiian ancestry."

University officials did not return telephone calls seeking information on the school's current policy.

Last June, the Supreme Court upheld the University of Michigan's race-conscious admissions policies, but also found that colleges must treat students as individuals and not accept or reject them from programs based solely on race.