Nobody is in a protected class. In civil rights law, protected class does not refer to any specific group of people, but to the classifications that the law applies to. For instance, religion is a protected class, but the law applies equally to all. The confusion arises I believe because people think of it like "middle class", or "working class", but it is not. In the case of religion, because it is a protected class, discrimination based on religion is illegal, but the law protects all equally, so Baptists are treated the same as Mormons, for example. Racists are protected just the same as anyone else. Whether or not someone is racist is irrelevant in this context.