 Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Noam Chomsky issued a statement deploring Esfandiari's detention and calling it "a gift" to U.S. officials considering a future attack on Iran.Juan Cole, a professor at the University of Michigan and past president of the Middle East Studies Association of North America, stated that he would boycott a conference in Iran which he had planned on attending in summer 2007, and called on other scholars to do the same.On May 22, 2007, U.S.