Employer-provided health insurance is the backbone of health coverage for American families, a system which is encouraged by exempting spousal and dependent health benefits from taxation. Nonetheless, even as many companies are realizing the importance of providing equal health benefits to all domestic partners, that coverage is taxed as income to the employee, creating an extra tax averaging $1,069 per year. The employers who provide these benefits are also penalized, paying a total of $57 million each year in payroll taxes on domestic partnership benefits. Although legislation has been introduced in the House and Senate to remedy this problem (H.R. 1820, S. 1556), these equality taxes penalize same-sex and other domestic partnerships and inhibit businesses from adopting domestic partnership policies.

Please join a distinguished panel to discuss the implications of this unfair tax treatment. M. V. Lee Badgett will introduce her new report, "Unequal Taxes on Equal Benefits: The Taxation of Domestic Partner Benefits," which presents original research on the extent of this inequality. The panel will also discuss the broader economic implications of the extra tax on domestic partner benefits.

A great deal hinges on the quality of people who lead America's schools. It goes almost without saying that school reforms and improvements depend largely on strong principal leadership together with effective teachers. Yet while much emphasis has been placed on teachers, we know little about how to attract and retain high quality principals, especially for schools serving large numbers of low-income students. One strategy is to reform how principals are compensated. This seems particularly important when teacher pay reforms are also underway.

Prince George's County, Maryland has a new federal grant to provide incentives to teachers and principals in low-performing schools. New York City offers a $25,000 raise to principals who teach for three years or more in a high-needs school and a $25,000 bonus based on student achievement. Yet we know little about whether these initiatives or others are likely to be effective. Why? While we know that principal leadership is critical, research tells us little about how to structure principal compensation effectively.

Please join us for a discussion and Q&A session on a new paper from the Center for American Progress by Dr. Dan Goldhaber and on principal pay initiatives in Chattanooga, Tennessee and Prince George's County, Maryland. Panelists will discuss the research on principal compensation and their perspectives on how principal pay initiatives should be structured to attract high quality candidates to high-poverty schools.

The Iraq War has caused the largest population displacement in the Middle East since 1948. However, the dire situation has elicited neither a major international humanitarian response nor a policy debate over U.S. responsibility for the crisis. Sectarian fighting, political and criminal violence, lack of basic services, loss of livelihoods, spiraling inflation, and uncertainty about the future have pushed some 4 million Iraqis from their homes. Neighboring states, burdened by the influx of refugees and concerned for their own security, have imposed visa restrictions and effectively cut off entry. The Iraqis that have fled to neighboring countries face tremendous uncertainties, including the threat of deportation. Regional governments, coalition forces, and international organizations are grappling with the crisis while protecting against security vulnerabilities. The recent flow of Iraqis returning home may be a promising sign, but until security in Iraq improves and people can safely go back, critical attention must be paid to the remaining options: improved conditions inside Iraq, temporary placement in a host country, or resettlement in a third country.

The Center for American Progress and the Heinrich Boell Foundation invite you to join us for a conference addressing Iraq's displacement crisis, the international responses, and the prospects for improving the situation. The panelists will offer their insights on the current challenge and examine the moral and security implications of the crisis, share strategies, and identify programming and policy options.

In his new paper, "Lifelong Learning: New Strategies for the Education of Working Adults," Bosworth proposes innovative changes to federal and state adult education systems to help America better prepare working adults for the 21st Century economy. The panel and participants will discuss:

• New adult education tax incentives for individuals and firms.


• A unique workplace approach to literacy.


• A revolution in the use of technology for adult basic education.

From the director of Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, Alex Gibney's TAXI TO THE DARK SIDE is a gripping investigation into the reckless abuse of power by the Bush Administration. By probing the homicide of an innocent taxi driver at the Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan, the film exposes a worldwide policy of detention and interrogation that condones torture and the abrogation of human rights. This disturbing and often brutal film is the most incisive examination to date of the Bush Administration's willingness, in its prosecution of the "war on terror," to undermine the essence of the rule of law. The film asks and answers a key question: what happens when a few men expand the wartime powers of the executive to undermine the very principles on which the United States was founded.

Incorporating rare and never-before-seen images from inside the Bagram, Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay prisons, and interviews with former government officials such as John Yoo, Alberto Mora and Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, interrogators, prison guards, New York Times reporters Tim Golden and Carlotta Gall (who wrote the first stories about the homicides in Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan) and the families of tortured prisoners, the film dissects the progression of the Administration's policy on torture from the secret role of key administration figures, such as Dick Cheney, Alberto Gonzales and others to the soldiers in the field.

Please join us for a provocative panel discussion and Q&A session immediately following the film.

*RSVP's are for single tickets only

In a timely discussion on U.S. - Iranian relations, the Center for American Progress will host two of the foremost authorities on the subject, Barbara Slavin and Trita Parsi. They have both recently authored books outlining the mercurial relationship between the United States and Iran and the influences of outside actors, including Israel. Both authors had unprecedented access to administration officials in both countries and provided keen insight into a very complicated situation.

Please join us for a lively and stimulating discussion with Barbara Slavin and Trita Parsi, as they draw on their research to illuminate post-National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) policy directions. The discussion will be moderated by Joseph Cirincione, Senior Fellow and Director for Nuclear Policy at the Center for American Progress.

As she gets older, Marjane's boldness causes her parents to worry over her continued safety. And so, at age fourteen, they make the difficult decision to send her to school in Austria. Vulnerable and alone in a strange land, she endures the typical ordeals of a teenager. Over time, she gains acceptance, and even experiences love, but after high school she finds herself alone and horribly homesick.

Though it means putting on the veil and living in a tyrannical society, Marjane decides to return to Iran to be close to her family. After a difficult period of adjustment, she enters art school and marries, all the while continuing to speak out against the hypocrisy she witnesses. At age 24, she realizes that while she is deeply Iranian, she cannot live in Iran. She then makes the heartbreaking decision to leave her homeland for France, optimistic about her future, shaped indelibly by her past.

Please join us for a provocative panel discussion and Q&A session immediately following the film.

In our modern world, sex is no longer the exclusive method for humans to reproduce. A new group of medical options, known as "assisted reproductive technologies," are challenging our understanding of parenthood and biological relationships. For now, the fertility industry remains largely unregulated in the United States. Where regulation of these technologies has occurred, however, it has had real-life consequences for thousands of people and ripple effects on multiple areas of the law, from adoption to abortion, from health insurance to inheritance. Assisted reproductive technologies bring to the fore important questions about who we are as individuals and families and whom society deems entitled to reproduce and parent. And these questions are not going to go away any time soon.

Please join us for an interactive conversation about these questions with a distinguished panel. Jessica Arons will present her new report, Future Choices: Assisted Reproductive Technologies and the Law, which covers three areas in which legislators and courts have already spoken to some degree-health insurance coverage, embryo disposition, and parentage determinations. Jackie Payne and Miriam Yeung will then offer comments, and, along with Jessica, examine the policy implications of these legal decisions and discuss with the audience the opportunities and challenges in moving forward.