The disproportionate representation of poor, working class, and racial/ethnic minority students in special education is a wicked policy problem because its formulation involves choosing among alternative problem interpretations and associated consequences. Integrating the work of Patricia Hill Collins and Nancy Fraser, the authors propose intersectional needs politics as a two-part meta-frame for conceptualizing the disproportionality problem, which they use to show how an interplay of individual and structural forces has shaped the relationship between oppression and activism in the disability rights and civil rights movements, and to argue that framing disproportionality solely as a problem of special education practice ignores a key institutional function of special education in an unequal, stratified, and racialized education system. They also use the meta-frame to show how provisions of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act perpetuate the disproportionality problem and on this basis offer recommendations that they believe are essential for its just resolution. (Contains 9 notes.)