You have what is unfortunately a common misunderstanding of the term protected class. Nobody is IN a protected class, because protected classes are not any particular group of people, like middle class or working class. In the civil rights act of 1964 protected classes are the classifications that the law refers to such as race, religion, etc. So it is illegal to discriminate against someone because of their religion, but it does not protect any religion over any other. For race, race itself is the protected class. So it is illegal to discriminate against anyone based on race, not just black people or Asians, for example.