Last week’s Amherst Bulletin decried a lack of diversity of candidates running for the new council (“Town Council candidates lack diversity,” July 20), but the statistics presented don’t tell the full story and are devoid of analysis or explanation.

The mix of candidates should not be surprising in light of the structural and institutional barriers, in addition to cultural and personal biases. A short opinion column doesn’t permit unpacking the complexity of institutional, structural and cultural biases and how they interplay.

But we can start a conversation about these three factors and how they interplay and reinforce each other in ways that work against more diverse candidates stepping forward.

A quick look at a couple of the institutional barriers. There were three months between the March 27 charter vote and the June 29 deadline for filing, giving candidates little time to weigh the pros and cons of running, assess the heavy lift of serving on the first council, negotiate with their families, and assess their ability to campaign, gather signatures and win.

This timeline was especially daunting for candidates who have never run for office, gathered signatures or perhaps entered Town Hall other than to register to vote. In addition, serving on the council, particularly the first council, is a huge job, a heavy lift for the newcomer!

Institutional barriers are magnified by biases related to how our town is structured. An example is the very high portion of registered voters who are students, a structural factor that distinguishes Amherst from otherwise similar communities.

Amherst politicos are very good at using voter data to make all sorts of points — for example, the fact that only 29 percent of voters participated in the March 27 vote. We need a thoughtful analysis that goes beyond the numbers to figure out what portion of Amherst registered voters are students, how frequently and when they vote, and what is a more reasonable calculation of voter participation in local-only elections.

Any reference to the average age of eligible voters in Amherst as 39 certainly needs at least a footnote.

It doesn’t take much imagination to understand why college students would not be aware of or why they wouldn’t run or care about an election regarding the political structure of Amherst. Given the demands of going to college, one has to wonder if a college senior, for example, has thought through running for a three-year seat and the likelihood of long weekly meetings and significant preparation in between.

The structure of American nuclear families, living independently from other families rather than a form of shared parenting, makes it very hard for parents of school-age children to commit to being out of the house several evening hours a week, and impossible for single-parent families. Providing child care is a noble idea but not adequate for children who need significant one-on-one with homework, down time with family at home and parental support at bedtime. No surprise that parents of school-age children are not running.

We’re told Amherst is a town of renters. How many of these renters are students and how many are working families? Families who rent are likely to have less income, perhaps don’t own a car, and might have difficulty getting to and particularly home from late-night meetings when public transportation has stopped.

A third set of factors exacerbating institutional and structural biases are cultural biases and preferences. Amherst has myriad diverse and robust networks of people of color, parents and international groups. Generally, they are very self-sufficient and independent of matters of the town.

Anyone who attended a performance of the New WORLD Theater sat in an audience of majority people of color. People came to these performances because the theater organized, reaching out to networks and leaders. You will see these strong communities at funerals, cultural celebrations and parties that are authentic to these Amherst people.

It isn’t that people feel uninvited to mainstream Amherst events, but more that they don’t feel “at home.” Feeling “at home” in a group means you don’t have to prove yourself all the time as the person-of-color in the room and everyone understands as true the challenges of being a person-of-color in a majority white country.

And without the leadership development role that Town Meeting played, the first step into town politics is a giant step.

The answer to all this requires stepping back and organizing, all of which happens outside the political arena and takes time. The new District One Neighborhood Association is a hopeful step in that direction. But that’s another conversation.

Meg Gage, of Amherst, was a member of the Charter Commission and, since 1987, Town Meeting from Precinct 1.