Washington ? The Supreme Court is edging toward its most anticipated statement on race in a generation in affirmative action cases that are overshadowing other important rulings expected before the court takes a summer break.

The unfinished business includes a Texas sodomy law and the question of whether the government can force public libraries to filter the Internet. And after that: the possibility the court will see its first retirement in nearly a decade.

June usually is the court’s busiest month, or at least the time when its doings make the most headlines. This year the justices are due to hand down rulings in more than 20 cases, including the two that will govern how universities may consider an applicant’s race in deciding admissions.

Although the Supreme Court already has narrowed the use of affirmative action in other areas, supporters say banning it for top colleges would mean a quick return to almost all-white classrooms.

The court heard from hundreds of interest groups, professors, students, business leaders and even retired military leaders supporting the programs in place at the University of Michigan and its law school being challenged in separate cases before the court.

The court’s statement is expected to guide other consideration of race in public life, and opponents of affirmative action hope it will all but end the practice in the public sector.

Absent such a potentially momentous decision, the year’s marquee case would have been Lawrence v. Texas, a challenge to a law criminalizing gay sex. The court may be prepared to reverse an unpopular 16-year-old ruling in a Georgia case that upheld similar laws.

Retirement rumors are swirling around the court as the session winds down.

None of the nine justices has announced plans to leave, but Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justice Sandra Day O’Connor are considered good bets to retire soon.

If either should choose to leave this year, it would give President Bush his first opportunity to choose a justice.